Ater Life
by Yygriega
Summary: Hank Mitchell succeeded in killing Karen before she could help Harry, and now even Harry is dead. (ongoing. more will be added later.)
1. Chapter 1

After Life

(Ghost Story and Cold Days)

Chapter One

So there I was, running for my life… only I had already died and I was for some reason running _toward_ the train. I slowed to a stop and stared down the dumb train with my hands on my hips and feet planted. "You listen here, Train, I'm not a-scared of you!" I bellowed defiantly. "I've faced off voodoo sex cult drug dealers, fought werewolves, lycanthropes, and a loup-garou in the same 24 hours, lost my girlfriend to vampires and the ghost of a wannabe Joe Carol practitioner almost killed my best friend Captain Colin Murphy while cosplaying as me! I've stopped fairies from starting a war that would have rained down apocalypse on the common folk, stopped fallen angels and their psycho ride-alongs from taking an ancient holy relic for goodness knows why, and rescued an old porn mogul from a coven of porn star witches."

"I've stopped a psycho necromancer from becoming a god, stopped a friend's daughter from becoming a warlock, and saved hundreds from being murdered by their favorite movie monsters. Admittedly when there was a power struggle within the white court, leaving a bunch of witches alone with a couple of vampires was ill advised, admittedly almost getting myself arrested hours before an epic showdown with said vampires was in poor taste, as was sleeping with that other vampire… but I killed the ones responsible, and kept Lara in office! I've saved a mobster from fallen angels, though I'd endangered the archive in the process, and let her bodyguard die, but I put her up with the Carpenters, and they love her. I found a mole in the wizard council, and found out I was a daddy in time to touch off a genocide of the Red Court of vampires!"

"And now you've talked to a train. You mind getting off the tracks before the damn thing hits you?" a woman's brisk voice shouted as I felt small strong hands pull me off the tracks in the nick of time.

"Where does that saying come from?" I asked her as she labored to drag me away.

"What is wrong with you?" she asked as she dropped me, falling to her butt. She brushed the long blond curls from her cornflower blue eyes. She looked somewhat familiar, cute as a basket of week-old kittens, and her pert little turned up nose was lightly dusted with freckles. Freckles and dimples get me! She wore a simple pair of jeans with a white V-neck shirt and gray suit jacket that hid a black shoulder rig. "Uh, hello, McFly!"

"Sorry, I was just thinking where does the phrase 'nick of time' come from?" I said, coming to my feet and helping her up. When I looked around I realized we were in an eerily clean subway station, no flyers, ads, decorations, just a single bench, and no one but me and Shirley Temple.

"Yeah, something is definitely wrong with you. Well this is fun and all but we better get a move on." She said in a tired tone, leading to the stairs up and out. We got to the top where a black Harley Davidson Heritage Soft tail with whitewall tires sat ready for us. I recognized it mildly, but couldn't put my finger on where I'd seen it before. She straddled the hog and was suddenly in leather with a helmet that looked solid black all the way around. "Get on the bike."

"Is it safe?" I asked skeptically.

"You're going to be a pain in my ass aren't you?"

"Lets just start with dinner and see how things go from there." I retorted, getting on the bike. She snorted a laugh. Suddenly my head was in a lipstick red helmet and a matching BMX looking jacket rather than my familiar black duster.

"Safety first." She said. I could hear a smile. After riding for a while, I go use to riding bitch on a motorcycle, but most importantly I recognized where we were. I had seen it once before with Agatha Hagglethorn, it was like Chicago's greatest hits all crammed in one place.

"I've been here before…"

"So I heard. We call it Chicago between."

"Between what?"

"Between what, between where, between how, between when." She shrugged.

"Between why."

"No. We're all about the why round here."

"Why am I here?"

"I thought you said we were going to take things slow? See how things go from here?" she jested.

"Why here instead of hell?"

"Or other? From your report I'd say you were a pretty good guy."

"I've made mistakes. Big ones."

"Who hasn't? I was given a choice; heaven or here, and boy do I regret that one! Heaven just sounded so boring." She giggled. "Well since we're skipping foreplay now, I'll just give it to you straight."

"Its been a while, but I think that's my job." I muttered while she spoke.

"You're dead. Big surprise. This place is where folks like me watch over folks who can't let go or died when they weren't supposed to. You weren't supposed to die. Someone cheated."

"I got shot, or drowned, no body's invincible."

"The universe is allegedly infinite, you dig?"

"Sure." I agreed, wondering where she was going with this.

"But that's just each dimension. There are a finite number of dimensions, albeit an unfathomably large number of such, but if too many are crammed in there… think the Mortal Kombat movies. Dimensions overlap; people start seeing things', remembering two different lives at once- chaos and in theory- eventual implosion. Someone altered the natural course of events to create this course of events in which you died. Your mission, if you so choose to accept it, is to unravel that mystery after which you can move on to wherever. I'll help."

She cut the engine and let the Harley glide to a halt in front of a duplex that looked like it belonged in California. The light blue stucco walls were accented with orange stucco window frames. There were black iron bars on the windows, and a stone half-foot-tall wall with decorative iron fence up to my waist resembling a grave yard, and an iron archway as the only way in through the front was overgrown with lavender and vanilla. A cobbled stone path led from the gate to one of the doors through a jungle of violently fragrant plants that gave the same impression as walking past the Dillard's perfume counter. Butterflies and humming birds darted hither and thither and I swore I saw some genuine pixies at a tiny table set by a babbling water feature made to look like a brook with koi chasing each other inside. I rolled my eyes.

"Mortimer Lindquist?"

"Yep. You _are_ dead. Whom else can you turn to?" she said, giving me a skeptical eyebrow. We had shed the biker gear and were normal again. I wore my long destroyed black western shirt, black jeans, black cowboy boots, black leather duster, and… where was my pentacle and shield bracelet? I patted my pockets as my guide knocked on the door. "What are you looking for?"

"My necklace. It's the only thing I have of my mom."

"Mamas boy." She retorted with a snort. I wondered how such a cute little nose could make such a sound but before drawing a conclusion I felt a sudden chill. On marathon night at the drive in, I got to see Harry Potter's prisoner of Azkaban. These floating drowned Russian sleep experiment victims must have been the models. But these looked like after a torturous withering death their eyes were gouged out, and then they were loosely dressed in tattered old thin grey shrouds. It disturbed me on every level.

One looked like he managed to eat off his lips before his teeth rotted out, another didn't seem to have nostrils, instead a melted lump vaguely resembling a nose decorated her face. One was maybe five yards away from us, beyond the iron gate, the other was down the street while a third was far enough away that it couldn't terrorize me.

The woman tisked and pushed me against the door, then drew a SIG 1911 out of the shoulder holster under her jacket. At that moment a tall man in colonial dress emerged out of the overgrown garden with a musket, cleaned it, prepared it, then dropped a peculiar looking ball into it. He took a knee and aimed in. the creature almost passed the gate then glided back like a current pushed it in, then it swept one foot over the ground in the slightest of motions to propel it after us.

"Is it friendly?" I asked sheepishly. The woman aimed in on it. "Didn't think so." I stood between the two armed ghosts and held my hand up to the creepy one. "Back off, buddy!" I tried to command. It didn't listen. "Alright, you asked for it! _Fuego_!" uh, that's when fire is supposed to pour out my hand and… "Fuego!" I tried again with feeling. Nothing.

"Stop fooling around." The woman scolded me, tugging me behind her. Womp. womp. Womp. The woman let loose three rounds from her pistol. It sounded almost like it happened far away, heard only because I had a metal horn in my ear. The recoil action left ripples in the air that expanded until they vanished. The bullets flashed colors and light and even rays of darkness in constant play until tearing into the creature's head melting it like a flame held to a crayon. Fog bellowed out of the growing wounds that gave the impression someone was projecting a film over it. I said into because instead of passing through the thing, the bullets stayed inside until the apparition's reel show was gone and the puddle evaporated, which actually occurred in short seconds. The woman loaded her bullets back into the clip and holstered the gun.

"What the hell was that?"

"Wraith." The colonial marine grunted, scanning the street.

"Dangerous?"

"Especially so for you. They eat fresh shades such as yourself: there is a sense of life that clings to you… to you especially. What brings you here?" the musket wielding man asked, coming to his feet. He was big boned, brawny, long hair tied at his neck, blue coat, white shirt and trousers, and tall black boots. Aside from his musket I realized he wore an ax.

"Business." The woman said as she banged on the door louder. Suddenly we both toppled into the building. Tingling pinpricks met my skin where I was one with the door until I was through, and then it just felt cold and numb all over. The girl recovered effortlessly and followed the colonial without a word. The house was comfortably furnished and beautiful. What was once a cheesy séance room looked like an old lady's living room, the rest was a man's house but not a bachelor without taste. We were led to an office with a fireplace and a wall lined with books where a short bald, but healthy looking man stood wringing his hands.

"They're back? Where do they keep coming from?" he asked. The colonial bowed courteously to Mort then cleared his throat.

"Young Miss Murphy is here with another new shade, Mortimer." The colonial announced. I looked at the girl.

"Murphy? Like Captain Collin J. Murphy of CPD?" I asked.

"Yeah, that's my pops." She shrugged.

"That makes you… Karen." I said slowly. Colin was an old stereotype of a cop. He was built like a weightlifter, just small enough to still be agile. His military cut hair was more salt than pepper, and he didn't put on a badge without a nice suit. We met when he was investigating a cleaving; I was looking for a lost girl. Apparently a troll was going crazy, hacking and eating anyone on his bridge after dark. The little runaway Faith Astor was about to be his next victim but Colin and I stopped him, and saved the little girl.

He asked me to consult for him on his weirder cases. He stayed in CPD long after normal retirement age until we dealt with one of his guys getting possessed. He broke down after that. It hit him harder than I thought it would. He retired that second, and unfortunately a phantom practitioner wearing a Harry Dresden costume stopped by and gave him nightmares shortly after that.

It was hard and awkward not having him around. I really liked the guy. He didn't hold me responsible but it was obviously hard for him to be around me. I had to rely more on my second best friend, Michael Carpenter. It was a good thing though, because I figured out his oldest daughter was a practitioner, and taught her some stuff. She got a little out of hand as a teen, but I digress. All I really knew of Karen is that she died at 11, and while parents say they love all their kids equally they relate to only one and Karen was Colin's one.

"Oh perfect!" Morty said snapping me out of la la land.

"Hiya Morty!" I said waiving cartoonishly.

"Whatever it is, the answer is no!" he shouted, passing through our comedy trio to head down the hall into the kitchen. "No. no. no." I followed Mortimer, wiggling off the prickly cold numbness and found Karen and the Colonial already in the kitchen looking aloof; Karen seated at the breakfast table, the colonial standing against a wall with arms crossed and lips smirking. Mort continued his "no." mantra and got a single Oreo out of a cookie jar then passed through me again to head into his office and close his door.

"Help me out, mister?" I turned to the colonial.

"Sir Stuart Winchester of the Colonial Marines." He saluted.

"_Sir_ Stuart Winchester of the _Colonial_ Marines?" I asked.

"it is a protracted and complex tale." He answered teetering his head side to side.

"Well Sir. I need to talk to Mort, can you get him to listen?"

"Ye have the looks of a scoundrel, a dandy sprat, and a ragamuffin! No doubt your conduct in Mortimer's presence among the living had led to his disinclination to aide you as a shade." Stu replied, poofing out of the room. Karen giggled again, and then shrugged like she couldn't help either. I shook my head and strode determinately back to Morty's office and SMACK into his door. As I sprawled on the hallway floor, Karen bent over me with a smirk.

"Ghost dust in the paint." She said as if it explained everything. It did actually but damn, it hurt. I touched wetness at my nose as the tiny blond hauled me to my feet.

"I'm bleeding ectoplasm."

"Well duh, what else would ghosts bleed." She said with a fair bit of humor. I felt another chill and snapped my head around, eying the hall and the big old lady room, then rushed to the front windows.

"Uh, the whole house is painted with that stuff right?"

"Heavens no. Just Morty's office, why?" Karen asked, leisurely strolling after me. Just then, chimes began to play until the cacophony was too much to handle. Sir Stuart returned and materialized his musket and axe again then brushed through the front door. I followed after him with Karen on my heels.

"To arms!" Stu shouted to the garden before leading the way off the property. I was expecting to return to Chicago between when I followed but instead, I found myself in the real Chicago, under a foot or so of snow. An entire swarm of soldiers from every decade of American history, Native Americans next to civil war soldiers, next to soldiers from maybe World War II, all side by side as one. There were civilians mixed in; a pair of children the most noticeable.

"Now this is something you don't see every day."

"There was a time I would have agreed." Sir Stuart nodded. "This has gone on for five nights now." I looked at him and Karen's matching look of worry as she produced two kitanas from nowhere, then followed their gaze to a wave of wraiths approaching. Darting through their massive force I noticed black-cloaked figures in small glimpses, filling me with the dread of a swimmer who recognized a shark's fin in the distance. "Tell me, wizard, what do you see."

A breeze carried a chorus of rattling dry screams to my ear. The hoarse call penetrated me to my spine. I looked over them drawing nearer but seemingly held back by something. "A butt-load of wraiths."

"I see now your intellect has been greatly exaggerated." Karen said, jacket gone, feet planted, eyes darting.

"Six in the back… they seem to be riling the wraiths up somehow." I observed after careful attention.

"Good. Those are the true enemy."

"But don't get too close to the other things either." Karen added.

"What are those?"

"Lemurs." Sir Stuart said, sounding it out like lay-moors.

"Shameless, pitiless, -" Karen snarled.

"Fearless? They're always fearless." I suggested.

"I was going to say unrestrained and malicious." Karen shrugged.

"They may not have known fear before, but since they began their attacks on this house, they've learned it fast and well." Sir Stuart added triumphantly. "Positions!" He commanded. The spirits made a four layer dome around the house, possibly even under ground into a complete bubble.

"Wow, when do I learn to fly?" I marveled at the dome of spirits.

"You do not learn how to fly, you must learn _not_ to stand." Sir Stuart advised me.

"There is no spoon" Karen translated. I gave it some thought then decided to drop it until all this was over.

"What do I do?" I asked.

"Survive." Karen snarled as the wave of grey broke whatever held it at bay.

"Talley ho!" I expected Stu to say, no such luck. Instead he said "give it to them lads!" and ear splitting shrieks, manly howls, and numerous other cries of challenge erupted from behind me. Distorted weapon fire, whirring thrown tomahawks, and other sounds of destruction met my ears. I ducked away from wraiths as they glided toward me and watched Karen use some shaolin two bladed water dragon something-or-other technique, and Stu hack through the droves of wraiths with his ax.

I felt a little impotent, ducking danger while letting two complete strangers risk their existence for me. Granted, Sir Stuart was protecting Morty, not me, but maybe Karen was. All the same, I wanted to help. A wraith came up behind us and I spun to deliver a weighted punch, but Stu pulled me back and axed it's head off. "I see that you were a fighter, boy, but now you're a child. You've neither the tools or knowledge to fight in this battle." He warned me. I watched as each wraith was injured, the Lemurs would swarm them, drinking the bleeding memories from the open wounds. If I had a stomach I would have retched.

When the lemurs sprang on us, it was lightning fast. One second they were a comfortable distance across the street, the next I was ecto-pissing myself, flinching away from a loping grab at my face. Karen cut off the arm, shoulder, and head in one angled slash of her sword, then in one liquid movement cut another down the middle with the other. Stuart gutted the third, causing it to stagger backward to get out of his ax's reach. A fourth attacked his back, but he spun in time to chop it at the midsection in a diagonal trail upward as it landed a bony fisted punch to his jaw. Karen cut down the fifth, and the sixth backed away unharmed… yet.

Sir Stuart dashed, as fast as the lemurs had, right past the sixth lemur. It jerked around to look at him, but its head dropped off it's shoulders. The wraith horde receded like a reverse video of smoke filling a room, and the dome of warrior spirits howled yipped and cheered in triumph.

As we headed back a grey nebulous figure rose out of the ground and zapped Sir Stuart with green lightning. Karen attacked with her swords, but was tossed away with green kinetic force, and then Stu raised a pistol and fired at the grey ghost just to have it deflected like magic. Magic, hells bells, it was using magic! I dashed toward it, fast as I humanly could then threw all my 210 lbs. of wizard into the middle of what I decided was it's back. I stared, wide eyed at it's silver green motes of flame for eyes on a skeletal feminine face and punched it hard as I could, fast and frequently as I could, just glad I was hitting something solid. I didn't know what I would accomplish, but I knew I wanted to hurt it bad enough to keep it from re-killing any of us, and I couldn't let up for a second or it would use it's magic against me.

"Help!" she demanded, covering her face with one hand and trying to roll us over and push me aside with the other. I began punching ribs, neck, and chest. Say what you will about hitting girls, undead magic flinging back zappers don't count. I heard impact, saw a flash of cold blue, then found myself breathless on the sidewalk in front of Morty's. I looked up to the nearly ten yards down the road I was knocked from to watch the grey ghost come to her feet by-

"Hells Bells… _Bob_?" This was Necro-Bob, as I called him, characterized by his cold blue fire eyes, lack of humor, and desire to kill me. The grey ghost dashed forward at the same time I heard a gun cock and a woman grunt "down" then, I dropped to the sidewalk and watched three rounds tear into the ghost, only instead of deflating, the ghost screamed like a teenager that got the wrong car for her birthday and burst into sparkling green mist that retreated down the street in a similar fashion as the wraith army.

"Bloody hell, that smarts." The colonial said, breaking the silence and startling me. Sir Stuart helped me stand while Karen went looking for her bullets. "The damn thing got away again." He grumbled. "Oh well, they will return"

"And in greater numbers." I added in my best old Ben impression.

"Tomorrow, I'm sure." He said beckoning me to follow him back into the house, grabbing his axe off the ground on his way. Just then, we spotted a man in a black hood trying to break into Morty's house. He was actively tugging the framed bars off the window as I spotted him. I ran toward the house, smacking against the iron barred fence like a brick wall, realized duh, ghost, and went around to the front gate.

By then he was prying open the window and wriggling in. I passed through the front door and in a direct line instead of going through the halls, I ran to Mort's door. "Mort! Mort there's a gunman in your house!"

"A what? Where's Stewart?"

"He's hurt."

"What?" this what wasn't a question as much as a sign of alarm.

"He's coming to the door. Get a gun aimed at it and shoot when I say."

"I don't have a gun! I'm an ectomancer not an action hero! Oh god, they cut the phone!"

"You are wanted, little man." The hooded man rumbled. "Come with me if you want to live." Oh I wish he had an Austrian accent when he said that.

"What do I do? Whatdoido?" Mort changed his mantra.

"Oh now you wanna talk to me." I replied indignantly. "What happened to all the spooks? Can't they do something?"

"They're sane! Only crazy spooks interact with the living, and sane spooks can't exactly go around acting crazy." The gunman kicked the door down in one try, folks can't normally do that, and I sped in to stand between him and Morty. Mort was gripping a golf club and swung it through me and across the gunman's face. Rage, fear, and pain howled out of him in form of a scream, then the wild-eyed gunman produced his weapon to train on Morty, while holding his face with the other hand. I felt pulled backwards _into_ Morty, and suddenly I became aware of everything.

As a ghost I had been looking through a cyan filter, but now everything was bright, noisy and stinky. The room was actually dark light-wise, and the attacker smelled like he'd borrowed his clothes from a dead guy and not bathed or washed his clothes in weeks. I lifted my- Mort's arm and called "Defendarius!" just as the gun barked and the bullet shattered against my shield spell. Five more bullets bounced off the shield until the gun clicked empty five more times and dropped. Mort opened his eyes, shot me out of him backwards, and then called "to me." I watched from the floor as a dozen Native Americans poured into the room and spun around him till their turn to fill his body. The gunman grabbed Mort's dropped golf club then swung it at him, but Mort grabbed it out the air, held his hand out to corporealize a tomahawk then in an old apache move with the power of 13 men, threw out the hooded gunman.

"Hells Bells, I thought you said you weren't an action hero!" I laughed. Mort fell to the floor and let the ghosts fade out of him until he could sprawl on the plush carpet.

"Been some time since you've done that." Stuart said proudly from the corner of the room. "Thought you forgot how."

"Me too." He panted from the floor.

"Was that possession? When the ghosts took over?"

"Please, give me more credit than that, Dresden. I controlled them, not the other way around… but for lack of a better word I suppose that was possession. I of them, not them of me."

"How were you not shot?" Karen asked from the doorway, kneeling to examine the gun.

"Dresden was handy, I used his magic." Mort panted slightly less. "Woo, I'm out of shape." He said exuberantly, rolling to come up.

"So can you help me now?" I asked.

"No." he said flatly. "I'm a coward. Whatever ruinous plot you're scheming, ill have no part." Stuart and Karen cleared their throats at the same time.

"Would you not admit that your contact with Dresden has in fact improved your way of life? By his example you had quit swindling poor wretched fools and become in yourself healthier and happier." Stu vouched for me.

"Besides, you're a crucial part of Harry's mission. It can't happen without you." Karen added.

"Mission?" Mort and Stu asked, looking from Karen to me.

"The poor kid can't move on without your help." Karen elaborated. I was mildly insulted being called kid by a technically 11-year-old. "You know how Uriel gets with the ambiguous language, withholding information, and suggestive anecdotes. From what I gathered: this isn't an imprint of a crotchety old wizard who couldn't let go, this is a _soul_! He has to figure out what collection of events led to his murder in order to pass on."

"Time out, Uriel is involved? Heaven's secret service?" I asked, holding my hands in a T. Karen gave me the 'look around stupid' face and held up the 'here' hand gesture from where she leaned against the door frame.

"He was instrumental in your defense today, Mortimer." Stuart added.

"You sent me in here as a test didn't you?" I asked the colonial. His cocky shrug answered that. Mort sighed, shrugged his shoulders a few times to limber up, then led the discussion to his kitchen so he could take another cookie.

"There's something else to consider as well Mort." Karen piped up.

"Indeed." Sir Steward nodded as if he knew what she was thinking. "The grey ghost has targeted you personally, attacking every night, wearing down the defenses, sending all manors of specter and undead and living alike after you. We cannot hold the defenses together forever. Dresden was apt at finding things before. Have him find and stop this ghost as recompense for your services." Stu suggested.

"Bah." Mort said as an angry agreement.

"Dresden has friends in this city. Folks who can help protect you. And you can always go to my father." Karen suggested.

"No I… I can't do that to Jack." Mort said quietly. "Get your friends to help me, find and dispatch this grey ghost, and I'll do whatever, provided it doesn't involve me fighting or getting possessed by you to make clay sculptures or something."

"You give my love life way too much credit." I advised him as we shook hands. "Thank you." I said to him and sir Stuart.

Chapter Two

I stood in font of the Carpenter family home and looked at Karen standing to my right. She crossed her arms and looked up at the radiant ring of angelic sentries with something like fear or at least apprehension. "You okay?" I asked. She nodded and walked through the fence gate to the front window. I walked up after her and peered at the gathering. Daniel and the little ones plus Maggie who I had asked the Murphy family to watch after, were in aprons and covered in flour, cheerily serving cake to Father Forthill, Billy the werewolf, Marcie the werewolf, Ivy the Archive, Colin Michael Murphy, Charity, Michael Carpenter, and a man in a suit I didn't recognize.

Maggie! My little girl. I remembered Susan showing me her picture, seeing the vision of her huddled hungry and tired but alive, then seeing her at Chichen Itza… holding her until I fell asleep, waking up at St Mary of the Angels in a panic to find her clean, fed, and sleeping in the cot next to mine. But then I had some things to attend to, I left the church, went to my brother's boat, and was just about to pull out the harbor when…

I heard a noise and turned to see my half-brother Thomas come to the fence and stop. The driver of the silver Rolls behind him honked the horn.

Michael tried to stand, painfully, but Michael Murphy stopped him and went outside to meet with Thomas. Karen and I followed him and listened in on their conversation. It was an odd thing; both of us watching our brothers meet each other. I remembered sitting in a trophy room lined with life-sized portraits of women Lord Raith was married to. I sat on the floor under a picture of my mother, crying like a baby. I remembered Thomas showing me his pentacle to match mine, and after soulgazing him to confirm it, we hugged like two bawling children who were just rescued from the dark.

"Hi. I'm Thomas."

"The less evil of the evil vampires, yeah." Michael Murphy talked back. "What do you want?"

"I want to help. The Fomor invasion affects the white court too, and the black court infestation had never been dealt with. Your city is being picked clean; Practitioners getting kidnapped by fomor, innocent mortals being stolen away by vampires. We're trying our hardest to fill the power vacuum left by the decimation of the red court. If there could be cooperation between us-"

"Let me stop you there." Michael stopped Thomas. "Cooperation with vampires?"

"White court is different."

"Because you're the sparkly-no-mess vampires?"

"In part, yeah." Thomas snapped back. "My brother would have had me along to help. You don't have to trust me… I doubt he ever did… but you can _use_ me. You could use the entire white court." I felt bad letting my brother think I didn't trust him. It was a bit more complicated than that. Silence passed, Thomas scoffed at Michael's stern look then shook his head and handed Michael a card then without another word got back in the car and took off.

We went back to the window to watch Michael Murphy report to the others his conversation with Thomas. "It was Harry's brother. He wanted to strike an alliance with us." Father Forthill and Michael had moved to the fireplace, suddenly unable to keep warm. I swear they both looked at Karen and me before shrugging. Mister, my giant cat with a notched ear and bob tail purred against the window where I stood, pawing at me.

"Indeed. Marcone and Raith have been the lead buyers of all the reds businesses and properties. It was startling to see how much of the world the red court truly had power over: All of South and Central America, most of the southwest United States, southern Florida, and Chicago. I wager the CEO of Silverlight industries is traveling too much and left Thomas in charge of Chicago. He's a small force, and his attention would be split between supporting his sister, holding down the fort, and us, but it's an offer that should be considered." The Mediterranean looking man in expensive suit explained.

"Wow, Childs, I wasn't expecting Marcone's best murderer-" Charity began.

"Troubleshooter, please. My repertoire consists of far more than murder."

"-Troubleshooter. I wasn't expecting you to support an alliance with the vampires." Charity continued.

"I don't think of them as vampires. It helps keep my opinions of each of them unadulterated. They are just like us; some have pure intentions, some do not, and some were not in a position to choose before, and are presently trying to make it right." Childs explained.

"He'll eat us if he's hungry enough. Just like when he tried to help those women." Joseph Murphy said, coming out of the hallway. Joseph and Michael were identical triplets. Their brother, James was likely at work at this hour.

"Those women… that was not his intention." Molly argued from somewhere I couldn't see from the window. I thought of watching my apprentice grow from just a little kid.

I remember the day she changed. Her powers were coming in, and I started advising her about them. She must have gone researching the subject and run into occult fan-boy mortals. She started dating this boy who was into the whole Goth-punk scene… and drugs. She would sneak out at night, then Daniel would call me and make me track her down and bring her home before she got into too much trouble. It was getting to be a bi-weekly occurrence. He knew she was under age but pressured her to have sex, She at least remained firm about that. So one day he got doped up with her other friend and got that girl pregnant. Her friend's boyfriend left her, but Molly didn't leave Nelson. So I told Charity and Michael what was going on. We grounded Molly, but of course with her considerable talent at magic, she escaped.

I tracked her to some horror convention, where I saved a man from being beaten to death by Hammer Hands- yeah from the movie- and a crowd of folks from being killed by Reaper. In the long run, it didn't help a whole lot. Many people died, but at least Molly never passed that point of no return into becoming a dark witch. "You don't understand how it happened. Skavis killed all of them, Thomas just fed off of Elaine, but Harry stopped him before he could kill her." Molly sounded like she was trying and failing to put a lid on her emotions.

Elaine… my first love. There were too many emotional memories there. The most recent and vivid was Elaine, withered and white haired in a hospital bed, telling me she still had feelings for me. She thought she was dying. When she recovered, she told me she couldn't be with me: that I was capable of moving on and I should, because she was weak around me. I remember breaking half the things in my apartment after that and hooking up with Lara for the night. I was doubly grief stricken. Give me a break.

"How can you defend him, he's gone after you too." Michael Murphy demanded.

"I've soulgazed him. I know him better than all of _you_." Molly said sternly. The others murmured arguments.

"Enough of this bickering. Its clear you've all already made up your minds. So we won't trust the vampires, even Harry's brother. But we should admit to ourselves even good people make mistakes." Will shouted over the arguing people. "Now down to business." He nodded to Marcy who stood. Marcy was a mousey little thing. In a crowd she would be overlooked, but she was second in command of the Alphas even though Georgia was Will's wife. Georgia wasn't an Alpha any more after Kirby and Andi died. Since I met the Alphas, they had dwindled from 12 to 4. She decided she would focus her one-trick act on healing magic and continue her education as a shrink.

"I've tracked the Fomor activity to Jackson Park. They have fortified the island in the middle of the lagoon and begun construction of strongholds within." Marcie reported. "They must have been working on the fort at Jackson since Harry died. Six months is the kind of time it would take to build those walls. I'd be startled if it took them any less."

"We have to coordinate a raid- now." Daniel chimed in. "We have the swords."

"Daniel." Michael Carpenter warned his son. Daniel sat obediently among the others. As I looked at each person assembled memories fled to mind. And I thought it was an internal reaction, keeping to myself about it, but when I heard a car arrive and saw James helping his injured old warhorse of a father out of the car and walked with him to the door, I looked to Karen and saw her memories play over her skin like a projector image.

I saw Marion holding two newborn babies while Colin asked Karen if she wanted to hold the third. Then Colin complimenting Karen on her costume and her turning to look in the mirror at herself dressed as a noir detective with gray makeup making her look obscured by shadows except around her eyes. She was a husky tomboy with hair to her hips. Her mother must have forced her to look like a girl most of the time. Her mom rolled up her hair in a classic up do then put the fedora back on her and handed her a long cigarette filter, like Cruela DeVille had. Karen posed in noir fashion and slowly lifted her head to reveal her eyes and her parents laughed and applauded.

I tore my eyes away from Karen's memory show to find Sir Stuart beside Morty, being led in an arm lock by Elizabeth, James's girlfriend and another cop, and Butters close behind. Colin went on inside but James stood between Morty and the door. "He was sitting in his car watching the house for a while. He says his name is Mortimer Lindquist." Elizabeth reported.

"He's a colleague of Harry's; an ectomancer." Butters explained.

"Why are you here?" James asked.

"Harry needs your help." Morty stammered.

"Harry's been dead for half a year." James snapped at Morty.

"Half a year?" I asked Karen. I looked back to her and saw a little 11-year old girl in a night dress with Cinderella depicted across the front. Her socks were pulled all the way up to her knees; one striped, one star spangled. Her arms were about the only skin that showed and even those were cloaked in the mass of thick long curly blond hair. She was husky, with chubby cheeks, sturdy trunks for legs, and strong looking arms. Aside from her baby doll face, she probably never thought she was a pretty girl, just one of the boys. She was pressed against the window staring at her father.

She turned to nod to me then turned back. "Its May 9th." She whispered in a child's voice.

"But there's like a foot of snow." I said looking under my foot like there was a dog poop smell investigation under way.

"Hellooooo- ectomancer!" Butters added. "He must be talking about Harry's ghost."

After careful deliberation, James nodded sternly and grunted, "Bring him in."

I, through Mort, was extensively interrogated before people felt sure enough that he was legit. They started work shopping ways to streamline the process, especially considering Mort repeatedly asking if he could leave now.

"Perhaps you should remain here. The angels would protect you from spirits." Sir Stuart suggested.

"These are violent dangerous people, Stuart." Mortimer whispered to his ghost companion. I looked around at my friends and aquaintances. They had changed since I'd seen them last but I didn't think any of them were bad people.

Despite our puppet act, I think what really convinced everyone I was me was Mouse standing on his hind legs and licking my face. After that there was hardly a dry eye in the room. Mort was allowed to go home and Butters asked Bob, who he kept stored in the shell of a flood flashlight, to do something. Everyone seemed to think Butters just learned new tricks but I knew he had a lovely assistant who was the real magician. Bob made a sphere around him like those at-home planetarium lights. Everything went tinted in cold blue, and little Karen and I became visible while inside Bob's ecto-tarium.

"Karrie!" Colin said, sliding from the couch to the floor. His knees were bad, it had to be painful, but he got down on her level and tried to touch her face. He of course went through it. He blinked away tears. "What are you doing here?"

"Daddy." She whispered. I saw another scene pass over her; a memory of her seeing a demon every time she closed her eyes, and of her laughing hysterically, killing baby birds, their family bunny, and the neighbor's dog. I saw her at psychiatrists swearing and screaming and telling in detail about the war at the gates and how she figured out a way to bypass the winter forces into the mortal realm. The whole while the real Karen was creaming for the demon to stop and leave her body. She would hold iron nails from her father's shed to keep the demon away, and in a struggle against it carved holy symbols into her own skin before stabbing herself in the leg with it.

She remembered the searing pain like someone was digging through her back and out her chest, crying while exorcists tried and failed to stop it, then the memories were no longer first person, but from the corner of the room. She looked at her body and it sat up, laughed at her, clawed the marked skin off her body, and tore out her hair until raw bloody meat in the shreads of a Cinderella nightgown were all that was left. The bones popped and protested as she moved like a creature not intended to walk upright to the window to break out, laughing into the night.

"I'm so sorry, baby…" Colin cried. "It was inside me. I tried to stay away from home, to keep you safe, but that man took it out of me and put it into you. He said if he couldn't have you, He Who Walks Beside would get you." Colin bowed his head and James and Michael dropped to his sides.

"Holy hell, He Who Walks Beside is a big time bad ass outsider. There's our dimension, then the nevernever, and the story goes: the Fairy Queens keep us safe from a _third_ dimension called _the outside_. The Outsiders are basically steroid pumped super demons from the galaxy of terror! No one could have stopped it."

"I should have shot you in your sleep that night, and saved you from all of that suffering." He said a bit darkly for the always calm and cool man I had come to know Colin as. "Or maybe if I had known Harry sooner." He looked up at me and sighed shakily.

"That's why you were so shaken up by what happened to Maloney." I surmised, thinking about the man, tied to his bed stained in sweat and waste, laughing and screaming. "What ever happened to the mystery man and the outsider?"

"Still at large." Colin growled angrily. "Why are you here, Karrie? Can't you move on?" it took Karen considerable effort but in a blink she was the 30-year-old again and she smiled sadly at her brothers and father.

"You kidding me? Who else was gonna look out for you?" I thought of all the times Colin should have died in action but was saved by small coincidences. Was that all Karen? I shook the thought. There was business to attend to-

What sounded like trumpets began to blare and Charity shouted for everyone to get down, pulling the stiff legged Michael Carpenter to the ground with her. A rip of gunfire shattered the windows, and I hit the ground. Karen snorted. "Already dead, remember?"

"Oh yeah." I answered sheepishly. The shots stopped, tires squealed and Karen produced her motorcycle and pulled me by the collar to hop on. After revving it, she peeled out, ramping off the couch and leaping through the wall of the house to hit the lawn, bypass the white picket fence and barrel down the street after a pickup truck full of- Jesus they were just kids! "What are we doing here? Its not like we can do anything to them, can we?"

"Watch and learn rookie!" Karen exclaimed exuberantly. "And listen close. We can't touch flesh or objects interacting with it. While shades can interact with physical objects, we don't expel enough energy on our own to really do much."

"You have to borrow that energy from somewhere else."

"Yep, Fig Newton's first law. An apple that is in motion stays in motion until an outside force eats it." She said back to me "Or whatever; I never made it past middle school remember?" she laughed.

"Physics lessons from an 11-year-old." I mused. Just then, the truck hit some ice and jostled a bit. Then Karen sideswiped the truck and while it wouldn't have normally completely lost control, the truck spun, through us, and hit a pile of snow left beside the road by snowplows. The truck stuck sideways into the cylindrical berm of mud colored snow and the engine rattled to an end. The four boys in the back were thrown from the bed into the piled snow, and the driver sustained a cut on his head from hitting the steering wheel too hard, but everyone was alive. I felt relieved.

The stunned gunmen stayed where they landed, dumbfounded for a while. We were where they spun out, a few yards away and side face in the middle of the road. "You rebel." I complimented Karen.

"Lesson number two." She said cheerily, getting rid of the ghost bike. Be over there." She pointed at the wreck. "Don't think- just _be_… over there." She explained, poofing like before, and showing up by the boys on the snow. I recalled using an escape potion, flying apart, and coming back together in another place. With surprisingly less effort that I thought it would take, I poofed and reappeared by Karen, facing the wrong direction. She giggled and turned me around. "You'll get the hang of it." She advised me.

"So now what?" I asked her.

"You tell me, smart guy." She answered.

"Can we possess them and make them turn themselves in?"

"We can't possess the unwilling. That's something only devils can do." Karen replied curtly. Duh, she died of demonic possession- then you went and said the p word like a dolt. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

"Lets follow them to their hidey hole then tell the others where to find them."

"They're kids."

"Ill be sure to mention that part too." I assured her.

"There's another thing to consider." Karen advised me as we watched the gunmen collect their things and abandon the vehicle. "The sun is coming up soon. We have to be on hallowed ground or behind a threshold by then."

"You go on. No use both of us risking it."

"You don't get me at all." She scoffed. "Its my job to protect spirits like you- especially _you_. I'm not leaving your side." She slugged my arm. "So don't fuck me on this."

"What this? I'm more romantic than this." I said gesturing at our surroundings. She snorted and rolled her eyes as she tugged me after the boys. I got to practice poofing while we followed the kids to a long abandoned manufacturing facility, where they slipped between two doors held together with a sturdy chain and into the darkened building. The leader, a well-bronzed redhead, flicked on a red L-shaped flashlight and led the way.

"I wonder…" I broke the silence. Karen was a step behind me and to my right. She flicked a look of askance to me but continued her vigilant sweeping glances at the new surroundings. "I'm not exactly biological any longer. There's no reason I should need light to see, right?"

"Nope." She agreed. As if on cue, the room became as vivid as if someone turned on all the lights.

"There is no spoon!" I exclaimed triumphantly, kicking off the ground and hovering over the kids. The leader stopped then looked around.

"Fitz?" whispered the shortest kid.

"Thought I heard something…" the leader, Fitz said. Karen hovered to his right while I was to his left.

"Hells bells, can he hear us?" I asked. Fitz's shoulders got tense and he tucked his head between his shoulders like he was cold.

"I'm thinking that's a yes." Karen said examining the boy. "Amazing. Another medium, what are the chances?"

"We should tell Mortimer. He might help the kid hone his talent."

Karen snorted. "What sane mortal child would _want_ to be better at communication with the dead?" Karen asked.

"The dead?" Fitz asked, stopping in his tracks.

"Yeah buddy, were dead. And you can hear us." I answered.

"What's going on Fitz?" another kid asked.

"Nothing. I need some rest is all." Fitz excused. I took a good look at the kid. He looked abused, neglected, but strong willed, well built, and tall. He wasn't even done growing yet. If he were in a different environment, he could be something. They came to an open space with skylights, a couple half busted tents redneck rigged to stand right. One was almost entirely covered in duck tape with a ruler and wire hanger holding it up.

There was a man waiting for them, baldhead covered with spell tattoos, beard patched with black brown and grey. He was cooking canned beans on a grate over a fire in a steel barrel. "Did you kill them?"

"We shot into their home. Sent them a message." Fitz reported.

"I asked if you killed them." The man demanded. Fitz took some time literally chewing, weighing the decision of how to answer.

"…No." instantly the man strode across to Fitz and backhanded him, in a blink of an eye. He had a little bit of power.

"Food is hot, boys. Eat. But not you Fitz. You deliberately disobeyed me."

"Yes sir." Fitz grumbled, holding his cheek. Baldy sneered then spat on the boy and walked away.

Karen slid her fingers over the boy's red hair and whispered, "don't." I examined the boy and saw true rage in his eyes.

"Its what he wants." I added. I remembered Justin DuMorne, my old mentor. I remembered the cult-like upbringing and how afraid I was of failing him… then how afraid I was to stay with him. "He wants to make an example of you. Don't give him the chance to knock you off before you become a real threat."

"Think of the children." Karen added. Fitz looked back at the others who hadn't touched their food yet, watching and waiting to back the boy up or run or whatever they would deem appropriate. Fitz puffed out air and climbed into his tent the duck tape tent. The boy curled up inside a sleeping bag, shivering and gut gurgling from hunger. There was a clanging sound of a can being set by his tent flap then he opened it and a mostly-eaten can of beans was left, with no one responsible. Fitz reluctantly if not cautiously accepted it, ate the two spoon fulls graciously, and then tossed the can. When he got back into the tent another similar sound brought him back out to see three more comparably emptied cans.

"I got the feels." I said to Karen.

"Heh, yeah, me too." Fitz agreed, quickly eating his food and tossing the evidence. We had a circuitous conversation with Fitz about our existence and his options to get out of this bad remake of Oliver Twist, but we came to realize nothing short of Dorothy's house was going to free him of his oppression.

"Harry, the sun is coming up." Karen tugged on my sleeve. When I looked that way, she was standing on the ceiling, looking out the East window.

"Crap… Hallowed ground. Graceland Cemetery! I told her. Before I knew it we were on her bike, tearing down the road at autobahn speed. She leaned forward and ordered me to hold on. Once my arms were tight enough around her, we poofed half a mile forward facing another direction to go down that road, and the other two turns we had to make were done in similar fashion until I was pointing the way to my grave. I half expected to find my body, but it was still a gaping hole. We teleported- yeah, way cooler word than poof- into the hole sans Harley, then sat in the hole watching the light move down the wall toward us.

"Do ghosts sleep?" I asked idly.

"We can." Karen answered. I nodded, and then put my head on her shoulder before drifting to sleep.

Chapter Three

"You're new." A sweet child's voice said to me. I opened my eyes to see little Cinderella Karen curled up snoring with her head on my lap and another young child in Victorian dress with parasol peering down my grave from where she swung her feet over my headstone. I woke the sleeping child then teleported to stand by the girl.

"Hello."

"How do you do?" the child asked.

"Well thank you. My name is Harry."

"Yes the late Harry Dresden. It's a pleasure. My name is Inez." I blinked at her then turned to the open glass case her statue belonged in. the stone crafted to look like a wooden bench sat empty within the case. "So is it true?" she asked as my mind reeled with questions. Karen, an adult again, flanked the child.

"What true?" I asked.

"Did you die, doing the right thing?" she asked, spreading her feet and pointing to the inscription on my head stone.

"Ah… I'm starting to doubt that." I said pensively. From what I gathered, killing the entire red court caused a bunch of chaos, and the nastiest of nasties were crawling out of the woodwork to order it to their liking. And I had been too dead to help protect my loved ones. Inez shook her adorable little head.

"You want to play with me? I like to play a guessing game."

"I have things I must do. Will it take long?"

"Oh yes, years, but you can do both."

"Okay…" I trailed off.

"I guess what you shall be, and in a few years we will see if I'm right."

"I get it now. Okay, what shall I be?" I asked, spreading my arms for her careful appraisal.

"I think you shall be… a monster." She said, satisfied with her deduction. Karen sniffed as an odd sound of disagreement. "No?" Inez asked Karen.

"No." I answered.

"Oh but people do so enjoy monsters." Inez replied. "They sing about them, read about them, and shape themselves after them. Monsters have incredible power… and choice. They shape the world."

"And hurt people." I added. Inez laughed.

"Harry Harry, hung from a tree. Afraid to face his destiny." She sang. "And you… you will be an angel" she referred to Karen.

Karen snorted again. "I'm no angel."

"You aren't the ghost of a little girl." I realized aloud.

"Oh? Then why do you look so haunted?" she asked pointedly, turning to skip away. I heard a child's giggle but Inez was nowhere to be seen. Another ghost resembling a man wrapped in a big black sheet over his head, hovered by my grave. I could barely see a face in the hood, and decided he must be Eternal Silence.

Karen and I both jumped at the sudden appearance. "Oh hello." Karen greeted it, holding her chest to display her shock. Silence bowed. "I don't suppose you're run-of-the-mill undead either, huh?" Silence shook his head.

"Okay…" I said, exchanging a look with my little blond friend. "What do you want?" we stood watching the cloaked figure hover, sheet flapping in the wind for some time, deliberating on how to answer.

"TO SHOW YOUR PATH." If foghorns could form words, it'd still not contend with the voice of Silence. My body nearly vibrated apart. Karen and I staggered, clutching our heads. "UNINTENTIONAL. MORTAL FRAILTY."

"Stop! Stop, we get it!" I shouted at Silence. We need a way to communicate. "My path… is this related to what Karen is helping me do? Find how I died?" Silence bowed slightly. Before I got anywhere with my interrogation I noticed wraiths all around, their ragged cry haunting to my ears. In a flash I was on the back of Karen's bike as she fishtailed before taking off through the front gate. I looked back. "Those are supposed to be shut at night."

"Well it was good for us it wasn't."

"But bad for Morty." I added. We rushed to Morty's too late. His home was ablaze and the spirits stood on the street watching CFD put out the blaze. We came to find out the grey ghost brought mortals with fire, then had him taken away. Sir Stuart gave me his musket and turned into a dumb normal ghost, no longer solid as fire even burns away memories. That was when three lemurs attacked us.

Karen ditched her bike and produced her sword. I wished I had my staff for all of a second before realizing something. The musket wasn't my weapon of choice, but the staff was. With some effort of will the musket in my hand became a wizard staff. The first lemur whizzed past my left, bumping me into a spin. I used the momentum to arc my staff in a violent swing, then teleported to the lemur so I cracked it in the jaw. Poof I hit it, poof hit it again, poof again, until it was leaking memory mist from it's head, face, and stomach.

Karen had a similar tactic for dodging their clawed swipes at her. With one liquid movement she sliced up the center of one lemur, poofed behind the second, who had lunged at her from another direction, then dropped to a knee to slice the other in half sideways. Then the swords vanished without special effect or pretense. There was a crunch of snow nearby and we realized we were inside a garish orange spotlight coming from a flashlight held by a man in full white snow gear and ninja mask.

"That was cool!" Butters exclaimed, coming closer. "I came to chat with the medium a bit but the house was on fire."

"They took him! They took Mort." I told Butters.

"Let go tell the crew."

"Back at the Carpenters?" I asked.

"It's the safest place in the city. The angels keep supernatural threats away and play trumpets when potential danger approaches. They don't have the best judgment of what's a threat or not but they try I guess." Butters explained. "Molly, and Charity put up wards around the house."

"Yeah I felt them. Wait, Charity is practicing again? She gave it up, said it went away." I asked Butters.

"You knew about her power?" Butters asked.

"Harry. One can't actually lose their natural ability. That's why Charity still passed the magic gene to Molly. Charity is becoming powerful too. Faith changed her. She might even be wizard level." Bob explained.

"How did Michael take it?" I wondered aloud.

"He talked to Father Forthill. Spent the night at the church, but when he came back, he forgave her for lying, told her she had repented enough, and they've been happier. She does this spell that kind of looks like armor made of light, and the ward was mostly her." Butters reported.

Back at the Carpenter home I found my way to a room with a bunk bed and pull out bed. Mouse was on his dog bed at the foot of the top bunk ladder; Maggie and Ivy were cuddled on the top bunk, while Holly and Alicia Carpenter were on the bottom. Molly had the pull out bed to herself. I scratched my dog's ear then watched my daughter snore, one leg out of the blanket, the other over Ivy's hips. Some fallen angels shaved Ivy's head a couple years back. She said she actually didn't mind and maintained a pageboy haircut since. I brushed my fingers over the girls' heads and the two bundled their blankets closer from the chill.

I went to the living room and explained to everyone what had been going on with Mort and how I found the kids and their cult master so a plan was enacted. Elizabeth, James, Daniel, and Father Forthill would handle Fitz and company while the other Murphy triplets and their Vikings, yes Vikings, Einherjaren to be exact, would storm whoever had Mort. All that was left was finding where Mort was being held. There was one more thing I had to tell them; Necro-Bob.

Karen cleared her throat from where she stood to my right and I realized I was in the middle of my own investigation. "Oh yeah, anyone know who killed me?"

"Hank Mitchell." Joseph answered. "Forensics found a range of where you were shot from and we had uniforms sweep the area. We found a deer rifle with his prints all over but here's the odd part. Hank Mitchell is some college kid studying quantum mechanics or something. The hotel security cameras showed an old guy whom kind of looks like the kid. We thought his pops Arthur Mitchell could be our suspect, but the guy is already in prison, and beside that, he doesn't look a thing like the kid. Its like there's two of them." Joseph explained. "And pops swears up and down that the guy who transferred the outsider from Dad's body to Karen's is the same guy as the shooter."

"What if he is? Why kill Karen and then kill me?" I asked confused.

"Beats the hell out of me. Through facial recognition software we caught him at the airport. When we checked it out he had gotten on a plane to Australia with some big booty red head. They seemed really close." Joseph looked at adult Karen intently, and then dug into his bag to pull out the case file. "We got an agent… Tilly from the FBI and Chung from Interpol aiding us. I'm head of the investigation within CPD actually. Here they are." He produced two photos.

One was Hank Mitchell in a University of Connecticut ball cap, shoulder length iron hair in a ponytail, a stubbly face that could pass for 30, and a generally unremarkable appearance. The other was the woman. She wore a stretchy yellow pencil skirt that drastically accentuated her wide round hips and shelf of a rear, Kelly green silk blouse that had a small peephole to show a bit of her modest cleavage, and gold jewelry. She was pushing her vintage sunglasses up onto her head in the photo, revealing a face startlingly close to Karen's. I reevaluated the woman against Karen and realized they were the same, only colored different. The woman had black irises and dried-blood-red hair with a slight tan, while Karen had angelic golden curls and blue eyes with pale, dare-I-say pasty, freckled skin.

"Why does she look like you?" I asked Karen. She stared at the photo in disbelief, disbelief that became terror, denial, and then terror again. Reading her expressions and kicking my brain into wild leaps mode I asked, "Is that He- She Who Walks Beside?" I asked Karen, holding her shoulders. Ghosts cant really breath, but Karen was hyperventilating. Her chest heaved with panicked breaths, and she shook like a Chihuahua. I tucked her into a tight hug and looked over to Joseph's pained face.

"When it was all going on… Mom took us to our aunt's house in Wisconsin… we had a sister for six years, went to aunt Robin's then came back to the house stripped of any sign she ever existed." Michael Murphy said from another corner of the room.

"I missed her so much, and Dad… Dad just drank and worked and drank and… Mom almost left him. We all moved out the house, had it torn apart, and agreed to move on. Us boys went to boarding school, Lisa got spoiled rotten, and Dad still buried himself in work but stopped drinking." Joseph explained. "Lets hunt this bitch down and tear some vengeance out her fat ass!" Jo hissed. Karen made an indignant sound considering she had the same exact ass.

"Vengeance sounds pretty good." Michael agreed.

"Slow your roll boys. These two are in another country. Let Interpol find them."

"What's Interpol going to do against a steroid pumped super demons from the galaxy of terror?" James demanded.

"Right now we have to save Morty. Put your feelers out for large groups of vagrants that wear hoodies. The ghosts said a bunch of folks in hoodies took Mort after torching his place, and from the smell of the one I met, I'd wager they don't live in traditional society." I told them. I bent down to check on Karen. Its wrong but she was adorable, all pink nosed and blushing from crying. Her eyes were too blue and bloodshot, still pouring viscid ecto-tears.

"I'm okay. Jeeze I'm not a baby." She said defiantly, elbowing me away then smearing the tears and snot off her face with her sleeve. SO CUTE!

"Good, cuz I wanna stop by Fitz's to let him know help is on the way. And then I want to test a theory I got from something Bob mentioned earlier."

"Something I said?" Bob asked, making the cold blue ecto-tarium flicker orange for a moment.

"Yeah… ready?" Karen nodded then produced her bike.

"Hey Dad's Soft tail! That thing has been out of action for ever." Jo said, standing to admire it. Memories of riding around the neighborhood clinging to her dad's broad comforting back from the back of the bike played across Leather clad Karen's surface. I smiled at her exuberant cheers as her father picked up speed. Karen fishtailed, phasing through most of the furniture then popped a wheelie, as we took off in the direction of Fitz's place, in a straight line through half the house. After some of my complaining Karen made the bike ramp from roof to roof, not needing a surface but using them regardless.

"You're like Ghost Rider!" I told her. "All you need is a flaming skull for a head and a chain as a weapon!" she puffed a breath out her nose as a laugh.

We got to Fitz and let him know the Calvary was coming, then I focused for a good two hours before figuring out how to let go of preconception and use my magic again. I didn't need a circle, a detailed spell-enhancing pentagram appeared at my feet around me, Karen stepped back so not to be standing in it and watched me. I pointed the staff and called "Fuego!" and fire, sweet spectral fire puffed out the end like a dragon's breath in a thrill ride.

"What the?" Fitz asked backing away from me and the fire.

"You saw that?" I looked at him, bemused.

"The fire? Yeah!" Fitz exclaimed in a whisper. Okay so not spectral fire. Real magic made fire. I laughed. I laughed like a scientist who just brought a super babe made of mixed babe parts to life and she was like 'how may I serve you, master?'

"It's alive!" I shouted with my hands in the air.

"Too excited." Karen said making a slashing motion in the air with her hand.

Chapter Four

Its swell having a crew of cops on your side: Fitz and his crew were at St Marry of the Angels with fresh food, clothes, and showers, and the location and identity of Mort's kidnappers was hashed out well before Karen and I climbed out of my grave to drive to the Carpenters. Everyone, including the wolves was ready, and a SWAT Bearcat sat in the street with five rhinoceros sized Scandinavian men in full tactical gear with giant battle-axes on their backs. I whistled.

"When do you sleep?" I asked Michael.

"Oh I got this all done by nine. The rest of the day, I played some COD then went to bed." Michael bragged like it was nothing. I thanked him and everyone, then suggested I recon first. There was no need. Michael did that too with two werewolves, James, and Elizabeth. It was go time, Baby!

I went back to Mort's and gathered his ghost defenders then launched a strike from the nevernever. I first summoned my fairy godmother as a guide sense I lost my pentacle. She agreed and through a bit of discussion I came to find out she was training my apprentice and having fun fighting supernatural crime in my absence. For a while I thought she couldn't keep it up forever. She had obligations. "Oh this isn't forever, just until your return." She said reassuring me.

"I'm dead. There is no-" I stopped myself. We were at the destination and Lea had already gone. Aside from that, I wouldn't get a clear answer out of her any way. We arrived on a beach with fortifications like something out of a WWII movie. So we used tactics that worked and made our way through. At the end it was rough and we had to face off against Necro-Bob. Lea's voice rang over the battle urging us to follow, as true Bob showed up and held Necro-Bob at bay. We poured out of the portal and true Bob joined us, sealing Necro-Bob inside with Lea.

The way opened behind a group of cloaked figures standing in a protective ring around where the Grey Ghost was torturing Morty, which was unfortunate… for them. My spirits of murderers past, whom I dubbed 'the Lecter Specters' came out of the portal as a wave, engulfing the lemurs in seconds. The soldier spirits took on the wraiths. Able to cut loose, my Lecter specters became hideous mutated creatures out of a Japanese nightmare.

Something resembling a centipede but the length of a school bus skittered across the floor, gripping with pincers made of a child's arms, and pulling whole lemurs into it's face, which resembled the little ghost boy but with the predator's mouth. The tail end of the centipede was his sister's head, but her pincers were her feet. I could tell because she still had one frilly sock and shoe on one foot. The hundred legs were an assortment of arms and legs no doubt from their victims, the children that they drowned in their river.

And that was the least disturbing thing I saw among the murderous spirits. "Look, the shrines!" I commanded my ghosts. The mosh of spirits rumbled up the stairs as a solid force, plowing through the shrines, weakening the wards. The Grey Ghost wailed furiously and lowered her hood to reveal… well actually she was quite pretty. She was a dead ringer for Maud Adams, though her eyes were a startling jade green, intentional scarring of spell symbols, burns, and tattoos undermined her beauty, and as I looked at her the beauty underneath was layered upon with signs of age, wear, and pain. I was seeing the real grey ghost. I blinked and it was gone, the bond babe visage returned in time to screech in outrage and lash lightning at me.

I lifted my left wrist instinctively, as if my shield bracelet (that I wasn't actually wearing) would protect me. And I never assumed otherwise. A cold blue semi-sphere of revolving circles of protection spells appeared between her green lightning and me. It looked like the inner workings of a combination lock made out of runes. The clockwork churning of spells that made the visualization of my shield shattered the energy of her lightning into sparkling motes. The perfect summoning circle appeared at my feet again and I raised my staff to aim in on the Grey Ghost. "Forzare!" all shades of purple to blue streaked from my staff in a cola of light like a softball-sized meteor. It blew her back from Mort so I could poof to him and conjure fire by his ropes.

"Dresden, get those ghosts away from here!" Mort demanded.

"Its okay, were here to help you."

"You don't understand! She can control them!"

The Grey Ghost smiled brilliant and fierce at me, lifting one hand. My wave of nightmares froze, seconds before smashing the final shrine. I couldn't hide the shock from my face as they turned their heads in unison and trained their too many eyes on me.

"Destroy the shrine!" I commanded. They vibrated, being torn between two impulses until their own wills, the will to kill overcame their indecision, and they abandoned my mission to come after me. I lifted my shield, the spinning cogs of spells rotated to stretch from overlapping in front of me to surrounding me. The specters washed around the bubble then regrouped a few yards behind me to make another pass. I tried to ignore them and free Mort. Another focused fire snapped his bonds at last. He fell toward the pit. "Ventas minimus!" I called. Instead of the circle appearing at my feet, it showed at the bottom of the pit, and wind slowed Mort's fall. I briefly watched him roll then lifted my shield to the wave of spirits. They brushed against it like fish attacking the glass at an aquarium.

"To me!" Mort's voice rang out. The Lecter specters stopped, back in humanoid bodies from the nightmare figures. They swarmed into a funnel over Mort until every one of them was inside his body. Grey Ghost screamed and directed her malice to me. In a flash she was in my space, slashing long black talons at my throat. Poof I stood on the ceiling looking up at her, but poof she followed me with another loping slash. We carried on like this all over the space until the power of the wards went down.

We both stopped, standing on different walls, to look at the final shrine. A creepy chopper motorcycle that looked like it was made of warped, half cleaned human bones revved it's eerie flaming v engine and headlights like two flaming eyes glared across at the Grey Ghost. Atop this bike was what looked like Alejandra, the female Ghost Rider. Armor plated her shoulders down, ending with red wrist guards, her face was a skull, but instead of being engulfed in flames, fire licked around her face and flowed behind her like red hair caught in the wind. She wore a black leather cat suit with tall black motorcycle boots, and a creepy looking sword was slung on her back.

"That's what I'm talking about!" I exclaimed victoriously as she imploded into embers and ash then reappeared about to land on the Grey Ghost. The ghost vanished under the weight of the bike then reappeared behind me, sweeping another blow at me. Alejandra was already on the move, driving along the walls like gravity wasn't a thing. Trailing smoke and ash behind her. I ducked the attack, teleporting back so that I was behind her and swung my staff. When she dodged my swing Alejandra ran her down atop her chopper. An angry shriek pierced my ears; the spoiled sound of a child who was denied a cookie.

"You have meddled in my affairs for the last time Harry Dresden!" the Grey ghost screamed.

"And you messed with the wrong ectomancer!" Mort snarled from behind her. As one voice and yet dozens of voices, the army of serial killers and deranged individuals inside Mortimer Lindquist let out terrifying howls of bloodlust. Mort conjured Freddy Krueger claws, only these were formidable tallons like miniature reapers and they grew out of his fingertips. He threw himself at her, slashing and cutting, and in her panic she forgot she could teleport… for a fraction of a second.

After clumsily dodging two slashes, then being flayed from ear to breast by a downward claw, she teleported behind Mort and tried to drive a knife hand into his back. Dozens of children's hands and a few feet came out of Mort's back to block the blow and hold her still. Mort spun, a scorpion/centipede tail formed of dead child body parts extended from his tailbone to hold her still while he did so. After a few struggling tugs, The Grey Ghost poofed in the nick of time, and got a cut on her face for her trouble. "Seriously, where does that phrase come from?" I asked aloud.

Alejandra was making her way to the fight. Mort's tail reared away from his body and the lecter specters congealed into one sinister terrifying creature. It had 6 knobby legs ended with ape hands, its body was vaguely froglike but when it opened it's mouth the entire top half of the body opened up like a Venus fly trap. The centipede tail whipped side to side. A seven year old girl torso tipping it. She sagged limply, her stringy hair shrouding her face. A scorpion/spine-like stinger protruded from her back, arching over her. The arms of the centipede groped the air. The beast warped across the space to the Grey Ghost snapping its frog like tong at her. She teleported away so it leapt somewhat teleporting too after her.

A thing so big and cumbersome looking should have been slow but what would give me nightmares more than it's looks was that it was not slow. It looked awkward but moved gracefully albeit twitchy like a spider or an octopus. It's teeth almost looked like they were in the gums upside down, the serrated tips resembled the roots of a pulled tooth. The tong had taste buds that looked more like fangs, and perhaps they were; pink fleshy fangs ready to drink in a spirit's memories given the chance.

At last, after watching the poof and punch rutine for a while, with a few well timed slashes from a flaming chain by Alejandra, the lecter specter nightmare beast swallowed the Grey Ghost. Alejandra and I came to Mort's side and he sagged to the ground panting, releasing the beast from his will… and then a strange sound drew our attention to it. I felt drawn in somehow like a black hole had formed in that general area. The nightmares began trying to break off of the beast but to no avail, then mists of memories began leaking from it and sucking into it's mouth. This continued until it imploded and a dramatic burst of eerie green light revealed the Grey Ghost, more powerful than before.

"Hoo Boy." I muttered to the others. The Grey Ghost laughed and howled in triumph then turned her green fiery eyes on me. "You will not deny me my birthright this time, wizard!" she screamed defiantly.

"You've met before?" Mort asked me.

"To hell if I know." I answered. She stretched out her arms and began to draw in energy until a dark cloud formed above her. It became a funnel and lowered toward her. "Oh Hells Bells! She's one of Kemmler's Necro-babies! Corpse taker." I understood. "And if she gets to eat enough spirits she's going to become an undead goddess!"

"We have to stop it!" Alejandra cried out.

"We can't get too close or we'll be eaten too."

"We gotta try!" I wondered where the mortal cavalry was while I began desperately blasting fire at her, but my advances were being swatted aside. I vaguely recognized Mort calling my name, screaming for me to stop but I had to keep up the pressure. Karen's voice said something like I was killing my self so I looked down to see Alejandra only not on fire. Karen's face was worried. Her eyes widened, I turned back to Corpse taker and readied my shield. She slammed against me with great force and for a second I was barreling toward solid ground.

I realized I didn't have to fall and dipped in mid air before flashing to corpse taker's side and swinging my staff at her head. She grabbed it mid arc and pulled me to her, into her. Or at least she tried. I called a torent of fire around her so she made a shield spell around her while I used the chance to escape. I flashed over to Morty's side panting exhausted and Karen stared at me mortified.

"You have to stop slinging spells like that! You're throwing away your memories!" Karen scolded me.

"So?" I asked out of breath.

"You're made of memories!" Mortimer added.

"Just you wait, Dresden. I'll gobble you all up in due time. Once I devour enough spirits I won't need your little medium." She cackled. Then she began to drink from the funnel. I watched as ghosts from all over the city began to be drawn in again. Karen's bike rumbled as she slid sideways toward the vortex then she began to drive away. Gray smoke and embers flew off the bones like burning flesh, sucked into the vortex.

"Harry!" she said in an urgent tone. I teleported between her and the vortex and held her in place. The bike was partially dismissed, but some broke off and flitted into the storm. Karen drooped in my arms, still dressed as Alejandra.

"What am I supposed to do? What is she going to do?" I asked Morty. My coat whipped in the wind, jerking me toward the vortex. Coupled with Karen's weight, I slowly began getting drawn in as well.

"She can manifest now!" Mort realized fearfully.

"BOZ!" Corpse taker ordered loudly. There was a rumbling sound from somewhere far away that I assumed was Boz but I had no time to worry about it. I thought furiously how I was supposed to use magic if it was eating up all my vitality. It was like learning soul fire magic. It was exactly like it. Karen said I was a soul. I had been slinging soul fire all this time. But none of that knowledge got me any closer to defeating Corpse taker.

"Damn it its no fair!" I stomped my foot. "Why can't _you_ be the super necro-god? Why can't _I_ manifest?" I asked Mort. Mort began to answer then it occurred to me. "Stop! I'm tired of being told I cant. I cant because I'm new I cant because I'm dead. But you know what?" The vortex stopped pulling Karen and me, my summoning circle appeared below me, and I closed my eyes remembering all the times I was told no, I would die, or it's never been done, and I rose victorious.

With that thought I remembered my life; not the events but the sensation of being alive; the pain, the embarrassment, the pleasure, the pride. I closed my eyes and insisted upon doing- becoming the impossible. With focus of will I called ectoplasm to myself and formed a solid form. And as my spell word I shouted "I CAN!"

From what I was told by my friends later, every bulb with a current running to it or not within a block suddenly burned to life brighter and brighter until it exploded. The candles around the dark dank and dreary subterranean hide out became man-tall pillars of white flame. And a shockwave vibrated the torrent into a mere mass of spiritual energy that slowly clotted back into individual spirits.

"Manifested or not, she's still just a ghost, Morty. You can take her… and I mean literally. You should eat her."

"I'm a-"

"Yeah yeah, damn it Jim, I'm a doctor not a necromancer!" I mimicked Dr. McCoy at Morty. He sputtered then after some thought straightened up and nodded confidently at me.

"What will you be doing?" Mort asked me.

"Boz." I jerked my head toward the elephant of a man charging toward us. I teleported, sidestepped, and took a knee to land a crpling blow to the big guy's shins with my staff, then teleported again to bring a weighted blow down on his head. I did this multiple times, a technique I learned was most effective for ghosts, but Boz, as dumb as he looked, was a fighter. His thick skin, covered in scars and calloused knuckles told me so. That or he walked on his knuckles and was accident-prone. He blocked my next attack and swept both arms out, backhanding me by calculated chance into the nearest wall.

Though I had my ghost powers, as I assumed I still would, I also had pain again, as I assume that I assumed as well. The activity tired me out, my body grew weary and sore, and the big Lug's hit hurt. Some clattering gunfire grew near at long last, but I couldn't expect to be saved. I clamored to my feet and stood ready for Boz. Behind him I spotted Morty doing some Apache fighting move on Corpse taker, to land atop her and began to suck in her spirits out of her body. It almost looked like a kiss from my vantage point.

A downward swipe drew my attention back to Boz, I rolled to the side teleporting mid roll to come up behind him, staff suddenly back in my hands. I leapt onto his back, put my staff across his throat then leaned away, choking him and hopefully subduing him without the need to take his life. Despite being mindless and inhuman, he was still human and mortal. He bucked and howled then at last got ahold of my pant leg, swung me like a rag doll over his head, and into the ground, face first. "Ow!"

He swung me around again to do it a second time while I was still too dazed to poof away but three round burst broke the near silence to drop my attacker. He fell with three holes in a neat line from cheek up, and the back of his head red paint on the wall. "Dresden!" James said, descending the stairs first in the row. His triplets and girlfriend were in a neat line behind him, firearms trained in different directions including behind. He rushed to my side and patted my shoulder. "You okay?" he asked.

"How are we seeing you?" Joseph asked, never relaxing his vigilance.

"How am I touching you?" James asked.

"I was too stubborn to let a thing like death keep me from fighting." I smiled, clapping a hand on Jim's shoulder. "Is Mort okay?

"The little guy is fine. He's on his hands and knees over…" Joseph trailed off as he watched Mortimer levitate higher and higher. His skin glowed with hundreds of memories projected over it at once. It all blurred and soaked into him until… Morty dropped. The room was lit only by some diminished candles and the triplet's tactical flashlights.

"Well that was anti-climactic. Mort? Did you do it?"

"I… I think so."

"And what? How does it feel?"

"Exhilarating." He said, but hundreds of voices said it with him. I looked around.

"Where's Karen? You didn't eat her too did you?"

"And why wouldn't I?" Morty asked in one man's voice that wasn't his own. Creepy enough a woman's voice answered. "Just because you liked her?" yet another voice chimed in "because she's useful?"

"Mostly cuz she's adorable as a tap dancing baby penguin, but yeah, all that stuff!" I snarled at Morty.

"Relax. All he ate was Corpse taker and what was already in the vortex." Karen said from beside me, still in Alejandra cosplay. I was so relieved. When I looked back up at her I saw she didn't seem happy. She almost resembled the scared little girl shape she reverted to when she slept. She crossed her arms and looked to her right, and I followed her eyes to see Uriel.

He wore his favorite form, an Afro-Latino man about his 40s but still in good shape, wearing janitorial coveralls and work boots. A simple dark wooden rosary rested on his chest, and startling honey/grass hazel eyes looked wisely upon me with smile wrinkles at the corners. "Aren't you a little short to be an archangel?" I asked from the ground. Everything froze around us but Mort and me. Even Karen was still as a statue.

"Appropriate. I prefer it when good and evil is so clearly defined." He smiled openly.

"Hey, you know what 'the nick of time' means?"

"In the past, a marked time like a deadline was called a nick for short. In the nick of time means at the exact deadline." Uriel explained. I laughed.

"How relevant. So am I done here? I found out how I died, helped Mort… kind of." I said to the angel.

"You are." Uriel's smile faded. "Ready?"

"Hell no." I snapped. "Sorry." I mumbled.

"Its fine. There is always a choice, you know. Remain here as a shade or move on."

"To uh… down the southbound train to damnation."

"Why do you assume you're going to Hell?" Uriel asked in an all-knowing tone. I glared at him not daring to hope for any difference.

"Can I say goodbye?"

"Can you?" Uriel asked. I nodded. He smiled. Everything unfroze.

"Guess this is goodbye." I said to the collected Murphys. Karen looked down.

"You could stay here and help me out." Karen suggested, moving closer. "I could use a big dumb boy to help me blow stuff up." I laughed.

"No I'm not the hang around for eternity type, and I don't much cotton to sitting by and watching things happen that I can't affect." I answered.

"But you can." She grumbled like a kid not quite arguing with a parent. I scoffed and ruffled her hair. Poof I was with my daughter watching Colin tuck her in. I sat on the floor with mouse, ruffling his fur until Mister found me and demanded my attention.

"These two go everywhere with Maggie." Colin said into the empty darkness. "They love her like they love you." He leaned over and stroked Mouse's back. "I don't know if you're really here but I think you are… I'll watch out for your little one."

"I know you will." I said back. Mouse turned and licked Colin's hand to convey my message. Somehow Colin understood, then I poofed to Thomas. He was behind a desk, swamped with paperwork, hands in his face, nearly empty bottle of gin and no glass. He was in bad shape but Justine came into the room. Thomas looked up at her and leaned back, then she playfully began unbuttoning her trench coat. I knew where this was going. "Okay Uriel, lets go."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Five

Hell wasn't what I expected. It was torture, that's for sure but I was expecting sticks and stones or pitchforks not… well I was in a reclining seat that was form fitted to me. It still wasn't comfortable but that wasn't the part of my torture. I felt pain; with every breath, with every attempt to move. I practiced moving and breathing until I was able to do so with minimum discomfort. My body felt heavy as lead and every movement took all my energy. When I was able to see again, I looked up to see Silence hovering near by. I worked at moving my head to survey my surroundings and eventually it didn't feel like a hot air balloon being inflated from inside my head.

"Where am I?" I tried to ask. It came out mushy gobbledy gook.

"In the land of the living, my knight." I flinched at the sound. With a great deal of effort I looked up, up, and into the startling visage of the queen of air and darkness.

I'd love to tell you all about my time on the island Demon Reach or my physical therapy in Arctis Tor, but it was just so boring, looking back. I met a lovely young nurse by the name of Sarissa and enjoyed our interactions but most of my time was spent exercising, eating, sleeping, and narrowly escaping Mab trying to find new inventive things for my obituary. Because you know, 'he died doing the right thing' wouldn't pop as much as, 'he died showering with piranhas' or 'he went swimming with Captain Hook's crocodile'. Seriously the thing ticked! Eventually I became strong enough and distrustful enough that I saw attacks coming early enough to prepare my spells, and defended myself well and easily. Mab seemed pleased with the results. So pleased she threw me a birthday party.

The ballroom was made to resemble a forest with a clearing in the center for the party proceedings. There was a thick ring of trees made of ice in such detail that I could pluck ice leaves off individual limbs. The trees glittered with eerie luminescence and tangled to form grand archways over each of the two large doorways and formed a stage at the third. An old fashioned well made the punch bowl, beside that was a series of massive stumps in a row making a buffet table covered with my favorite foods. There was even a double bacon whopper, no cheese platter with them neatly stacked into a pyramid with the wrappers half folded away like in the commercials.

A band of fairies played, wings fluttering, from a space by the stage that resembled an amphitheater mixed with an animal's burrow. This amplified their music to the rest of the space. They were playing 'Pretender' by Foo Fighters with a folky sound quality but otherwise perfectly on point with the tempo and intensity. I stopped by the door and jammed out unabashed before entering. I didn't want any fairies seeing my goofy elbow throwing and Spartan kicking that I referred to as dancing. There was a giggle from nearby and I nearly stumbled to stop dancing and stand up straight. With a curt bow, I greeted the lovely Sarissa.

She had her mousey brown hair swept to one side and put up in an intricate bun that almost looked like a Celtic knot. Some hair curved classily over one eye, leaving the other emerald eye to flutter nervously under my stare. Her dress was plum purple with clear rhinestones studding the straps and the trim so it shimmered every color on the cold end of the light spectrum. It was a simple gown otherwise. Thin straps holding it up, lots of back revealed. She wore long periwinkle gloves and a long silver chain as a necklace, wrapped around her neck twice. I cleared my throat, exchanged niceties and offered my arm to lead her into the ball. I was met with applause, welcoming the new knight.

I was glad that the food was edible. There were Chinese food boxes stacked in a pyramid here, nearly a trough of fries there… I realized I pretty much only eat fast food and ramen. No wonder I was out of shape. After endeavoring to become a healthier eater, I sampled all of the spread, with Sarissa in toe. She was glad the food was real as well. Some red-capped jerk tried to pick a fight with me. It was no big deal. He pit his raw head at me but I froze it to death… then had a fun conversation with Chris Kringle and a goat man. Afterward I danced with queen Mab, she told me to kill her crazy daughter, and gave me a 24-hour head start. Hoo boy.

Being solid again was an interesting thing enough as it was but now I was solid, in a nice tux, and riding in the back of a hearse driven by an army of dewdrop fairies to Butters' apartment. When I got there, I knocked on the door, ordering my fairy horde to guard us from any outside threats while I talked to Butters. I had expected the little guy to answer but instead I came face-to-face with a frail thin wisp of a girl. Her hair was messy and dyed black from what looked like light brown at her roots. She was lightly bronzed with mostly African features but crystal blue eyes behind thick-rimmed geek glasses. She wore only an oversized sweater with the sleeves cut short with Chicago University emblazoned across the front. "Dresden?" she asked with a slight accent.

"Uh… I'm looking for Waldo." I asked her. She busted into laughter then I recognized my error. "Butters." I added. She nodded, stepping aside for me and rushed to the bedroom. Butters came out groggily and stopped in his tracks.

"Harry? I thought you moved on?" Butters asked.

"Yeah, I went to hell, but they said their insurance rates got too high and sent me back." I jested. "I'm here in the flesh. Alive and well." I said, holding my hand up for him to shake. He hugged me instead. I chuckled. Then had to ask. "You got a girlfriend."

"Yeah… one of the Alphas." Butters answered.

"That's why she knew me, okay." I drawled. "I actually needed to have a chat with Bob." I explained. The four of us sat in the kitchen and had an intense conversation about my mission for Mab after that. One cut short by a racket outside the apartment made by my little guys flashing yellow and red while banging on the windows followed by a broken window and an explosion. My practice with Mab must have paid off. The second my fairy guard alerted me, I pulled Bob, Butters, and his girlfriend into a bubble shield.

Butters' apartment was a nice two-bedroom on one corner of the fourth floor. After a while I almost dropped my shield but the ground gave way and we sank into the third floor. After a brief pause, the third floor gave way for the second; meanwhile the chunk of the apartment building above us was coming down too. One floor after another broke free and crumbled; taking just that corner of the building, but the devastation was enough. Debris bellowed out, breaking the support walls to more of the apartment. Nearby brick buildings got chunks chipped away by the tide of debris. Just a few minutes after falling through the second floor under the weight of the other floors, more of the apartment broke off and tumbled atop us in our bubble.

I could hear the cries of terror, dozens of names being called, desperate prayers, and woeful tears in the aftermath. A third of the 11-floor apartment building had crumbled away like a rockslide. That must have been one heck of an explosive. I changed the shape of my shield from a bubble to a cylinder, moving debris out the way so Butters and his girlfriend could climb out with Bob and I brought up the rear. Once out we helped look for survivors. I knew the bomb was meant for me. If anyone was dead because of me… If. It was the middle of the night on a weekday; of course someone was dead in this.

"Harry. Harry it wasn't your fault." Betty, Butters' girlfriend assured me, patting my back while I cried over a particularly large bit of rubble. What was that accent, British, Australian, South African?

"I shouldn't have come here."

"You needed help."

"But I endangered all these people." I whispered. I wanted to scream. I wanted to ignore the wrecked apartment and pursue the bomber. Then I would tear him apart with my bare hands. I clenched my jaw then lifted the concrete chunk over head to toss aside. Betty looked at it, looked at me, and then backed away while I dug, franticly, hoping for a sign of life.

"Hello?" I heard a weak cough and a little boy's voice called out again. "Someone help! Were trapped!" the boy's voice called. I dug, deeper and deeper, through the debris until I found a man's body pinned by debris, crushed to death, but his death was not in vain. A little boy of 13 was huddled in the heavy metal doorframe to the Laundromat on the first floor with a second boy of maybe two. The stacks of machines coupled with the sturdier architecture of the base floor made survival far more likely. An elderly woman and a college guy were also alive under a metal table between two rolling baskets. The college guy was holding the woman protectively like his instincts to save her just kicked in and didn't let go. Among the other survivors found by Butters and a massive shaggy black wolf I assumed to be Betty in wolf form, there was a pile of children who were on the top floor at a slumber party, all around Maggie's age. That hit particularly close to home.

There were about 17 survivors, almost all of them seriously injured. The college guy and old lady had minor head wounds and bruises, the 13 year old was concussed and bleeding from a wound in the back of his head. His little brother was fine, but all the slumber party girls had more than one broken bone. There were adults in critical condition, and 16 died on scene or at the hospital. James Murphy arrived on scene. I didn't want to face him. What would he think of me? I considered slipping away. I casually walked around the fire truck and sat on the curb. Maybe if I dug up some of the bomb I could track the bomber that way.

While I was self loathing and plotting how I'd murder the bomber I heard a woman laugh. It was a sexy low laugh that a guy could make out in a crowd. A laugh that promised things to whoever could make it happen again. I looked up and watched a woman saunter over to me. She wore tall candy red heels, a scandalously short red skirt, a fire orange blouse, and black leather short coat. Her hair was curled into wide ringlets to her hips, and she wore a lot of makeup but it wasn't exactly a turn off. It looked good. It looked hot. Only problem was the body it was all on. The hair was the color of drying blood, the skin was slightly bronzed, and the eyes were pools of black, but otherwise it was my ghost friend Karen's body.

"He Who Walks Beside." I stood, readying my shield.

"Please, Harry, call me Helena." She replied casually. I glared.

"You did this?"

"In part. The building never would have come down like that from the bomb so I helped it along a bit. It never would have happened if you just stole the skull and left like Hank said you would."

"How did he know a thing like that?"

"Please, haven't you ever wondered how your enemies always seemed to know exactly what you were going to do? Hank told them. Hank has lived all of this before… multiple times. He's by no means a powerful practitioner but his one trick is a doozey."

"Time travel?"

"I think you might be smarter than he gives you credit. But things apparently didn't go exactly as he said. I presume the ripple effect could account for that. Or wild inaccuracies. Either way you still prevailed. That's when he and I had to come dispatch you in person. But you didn't stay dead did you? He thought that might happen too. So why did he think you were going to steal that trinket?"

"I had planned something like that but… as much as I didn't want my friends to get hurt, through the years I'd realized knowledge is power. They can defend themselves better knowing what's going on. Beside that, they would never trust me again." I answered. This wasn't at all like when I spoke to He Who Walks Behind they both spoke like school teachers but he was blood thirsty, monstrous, and scary… Helena was hot as hell, cocky, and bored.

"So you'd rather your friends like you than be safe."

"That's not what I said."

"But that was your choice. You chose to stay and chat and be friendly, knowing full well you were in danger and it might find you."

"I didn't think it would have caught up so fast… but that was your doing wasn't it?"

"Just so." She inclined her head.

"Your message is trust no one, like Moulder and Cat Sith said. Not because _they_ are untrustworthy but because _I_ am a liability."

"So you do understand. I'm so glad." She clapped cheerily. I was overcome with hatred. No body threatens my friends! I challenged her with a shout of _fuego_, fire shot up out of the ground around her, frying her hair and clothes. She shielded herself quickly, and then made the ground give way beneath me.

"_veni che_" I called, throwing myself out her sink hole, and after her. I took her to the ground and we tumbled until I was atop her. We had nearly 2 feet and 100 lbs weight difference, so I should have had the advantage, but she was skilled. We tussled on the ground, only able to see what we were doing from the flashing fire truck lights. Something howled within me to bite, scratch, lick; anything to turn this fight into my favor. At last I pinned her, but I dared not move or she would gain the upper hand again. Instead I rested into dead weight as she struggled. Her moves beneath me went from tiny futile struggling to something very interesting. She laughed.

"Oh? At a moment like this? Well you are much cuter than Hank, I'll give you that." She jested. I risked letting go of her hand to grip her throat and stood, controlling her by her neck. I slammed her against the nearest solid object, a beat up old Crown Victorian. She laughed more, sending lightning to my man parts. "Stop. You're fighting it." She whispered sensually while looking straight up at me. "We could use a soldier like you, Harry." I looked down trying to go over the benefits of tearing her throat out with my teeth now versus _after_ screwing her atop this vehicle.

She slid down the side of the car to crouch on her heels, knees pressed firmly against the vehicle to either side of her torso with an insect like quality rather than sexy extremely flexible quality. Her fingers clawed their way from my chest to un-tuck my dress shirt and fidget with my pant buttons. Before I could see where this was going, my army of dewdrop fairies flew at my face, dropping me onto the ground where I had a fantastic view of a war of tiny folk all over me and in the sky. I swatted and kicked but they were too fast and too small. Helena laughed as she crouched over my chest. "Maybe another time then, Star born." She whispered, before planting a kiss on my lips that curled my toes and stalking away.

Something hurt- bad! I was being restrained by something. When I looked down I watched Toot swipe his bright orange plastic covered craft razor at a heavily armored fairy that was tying me up. He drew an iron nail with electrical tape to protect himself from the blade. Toot defeated him then cut me free. I pulled more iron nails with tape handles from my arms and legs, and then followed my general to safety.

We should have gone toward the fire trucks. Instead we were headed away. I got a bad feeling and chanced a look up to spot a swarm of fairies above. They came down on me as a solid wave, knocking me onto my back. That was fine. I held up my right hand and called "Ventas reductas!" the moist October air condensed and became frigid. Soon a torrent of mist and snow spiraled toward the little folk. Some dropped like rocks out of the sky, the others panicked. All but one. This ballsy little black armored fairy threw it's self into my face. Fishing hooks were fastened to it's armor and tearing at my face as he threw himself at me, clawing with nails in each hand. My arm came up and swept him away but he came back. I curled in a ball to protect my face.

"Defendarius!" I shouted before the swarm returned. I worried furiously how I was supposed to fight off a swarm like this until "CAT!" a dozen little voices screamed. More voices repeated the warning until word was sufficiently passed and all the little fairies, friendly or not were gone.

I remained in my shield for a moment a little disoriented. "Its okay. They're gone." A familiar voice said calmly.

"Grasshopper." I said in relief. When I stood and looked around I couldn't sense the presence of any monsters or fairies around. It didn't mean they weren't there but they weren't actively attacking me. It was strange… I'd faced two outsiders and they seemed more interested in recruiting me than killing me. They killed plenty of civilians though. I don't care how sexy she was, I was going to make Helena pay. "Good job with the cats illusion."

"Thanks boss. Oh I better bring you home. Maggie's been chomping at the bit to see you."

"What? No- wait- how did you-"

"Know you were alive? Lea told me… kinda."

"No… yes… uh…"

"Know where to find you? Just follow the destruction." She said cheerily. I grunted in disagreement. "No, silly Butters said to Jimmy that you were the one who pulled folks out the rubble but the bomb and junk might have been meant to kill you. Jim sent out a mass text to find and help you."

"You get texts?"

"No but… my boyfriend does." She answered a bit sheepishly.

"He better be better than the last one." I said in my best fatherly tone.

"You know him already. Its Colin junior."

"Michael Murphy?"

"I can't call him that, its… awkward."

"They came in a pack of three. You were the one who picked the one with the same name as your dad."

"Focus Boss, we gotta get out of here." Molly said in a tired tone. She led me to a silver Honda Accord hybrid that was still running in a near-by alley, and then another familiar face came out the driver seat and opened the back door for me. I shook Michael Murphy's hand.

"So you're alive this time?"

"Seems that way. But it doesn't look like I'll be staying that way too long."

"I hear ya. Lets get back to our place it's guarded so I doubt we'll have a repeat of earlier. Betty and Butters are already there." Mike explained.

The apartment was ritzy, way out of a cop's budget. I whistled. "Like it? I got it as payment for doing the svartalves a favor a while back." Molly explained.

"Svartalves? Good job grasshopper!" I exclaimed.

"I'm bound to have something that fits you somewhere. Then lets trim up that mop."

"Hey, I haven't cut my hair in 9 months! I was too busy in a coma and physical therapy."

"You said you were dead at the time."

"Thought I was." I grumbled. We said what's up to the security guard then went into the apartment. The living area was massive with a high ceiling and island bar kitchen. I let Molly force me out of my shirts and sat me on a chair in the middle of some bare hardwood floor. After having my cuts and bruises assaulted by anti-septics, anti-biotics, or whatever-the-hell burned so bad I heard a spray bottle and felt mist on my bare back then she tugged at my hair with a fine-tooth comb and snipped away. There was quite a lot of hair amassed over the near year I had been physically out of commission. She finished up my hair, showed me to the bathroom with Mike bringing me clothes and a razor, and then left me be. Hair cut, showered and shaved, I evaluated the nicks over my eye where the fairy covered in hooks attacked me. Oh well, just more scars. I came out in a black CPD shirt that was long enough when my arms were down, and pants I think were from Michael Carpenter considering how close to my size they were.

"So go ahead with the questions." I said tiredly shuffling to the kitchen. I did a scan of the living space. There was a rug with a dining set for up to six, there was a rug by a fireplace with comfy looking living room furniture, a desk nestled in the center of a wall otherwise covered in bookshelves, and a rug where some exercise equipment stood.

"First!" Molly said excitedly, popping up from where she leaned on the kitchen counter. She took my hand and pulled me to a bedroom then pushed me inside. A big mound of grey fur with a smaller mound shifted into Mouse and Mister and greeted me by throwing their collective weight on me. I chuckled and pet them then passed them to see Maggie. She was in a bed with a fancy head and foot board, and a purple mosquito net made to look like it was exclusively for princesses. Molly let me stand there staring at my little girl for a while before scoffing and waking Maggie up herself, much to my protest.

"Daddy?" she asked, looking at me blearily.

"Yeah." I managed to choke out. She excitedly climbed out of her covers and leaped off her bed into my arms. The many little cuts and scratches put up protest but I ignored them. I sank to the floor and clung to Maggie tight. She made fake coughing noises so I let go and she pushed me to arm's length to evaluate me.

"You're hurt!"

"Ambushed by tiny evil fairies, but I have an army of fairies of my own that protect me and Molly saved me too."

"I'm glad. I'd seen you when you saved me from el chupacobra, but I didn't realize you were my real daddy. Molly said you were coming to be with me soon."

"Yeah."

"When I told Carrie, she said I had a really cool and handsome daddy. She said you were super powerful and strong."

"Carrie?"

"Molly and Michael cant see her, but when I go to the play ground she's always there to play with me. She taught me basketball and football. Michael was really impressed. I use to have a monster under my bed when I lived with Colin and Marion, but Mouse ate it!" Maggie told me excitedly.

"Okay, Mag pie, its time for bed."

"But you woke _me_."

"I know but it's back to bed time now. I just wanted you to see your daddy." Molly told her. The child groaned.

"You want to tuck me in?" she asked me.

"Absolutely." I said, since I exhausted the word Yeah with her by now. Once she was successfully swaddled she insisted I read her a book. I read _Where the Wild Things Are_, and then kissed her goodnight.

When I came out to the kitchen Mike beamed at me. "You'll have to work on your voices."

"Its my first time." I defended myself.

"Take the constructive criticism." He insisted.

"Work on the voices, okay."

"So now the bad news. Something is wrong with your island." Molly told me. "Energy is building there like… like steam in a boiler. Uh… we think its going to blow… like Volcano blow."

"Call Tommy Lee Jones." I shrugged. There was the sound of a door open, tiny feet shuffling, then another door slam.

"It is the source of a major confluence. If it blows, it'll… it'll"

"Take out most the Midwest?" to the startled looks I got I figured I was on the money. "And let me guess, we expect this big boom tomorrow night."

"Yeah… how-" Mike began to ask.

"Because my life is a disaster movie and I always have 24 hours to un-fuck the world while doing some other unrelated nonsense that happens to be tied in at the end." The door to the bathroom opened to let the sound of a flushing toilet reach my ears and out shuffled little Maggie in her purple Capri pajama pants and pink tank top with Elissabat from something called Monster High depicted on it.

"May I have some water, please?" she asked.

"Margaret Marry Dresden, you get back in bed this instant. I won't fall for your stalling." Molly said in a spot on Charity impression.

"Yes ma'am." Maggie agreed. Molly fixed a glass of water and took it to the girl's room.

"If I didn't know any better I'd say Molly's got the makings of a good mommy." I said to Mike.

"Why wouldn't she?"

"Uh… no reason, never mind." I didn't want to mention the darkness in her that I was always careful not to nurture. She didn't exactly respect authority or like boundaries either. Molly came out of the room and grabbed two cokes and a bottled water for Mike before sitting in his lap.

"Well I better call Thomas and borrow his boat." I followed where Molly pointed to pick up the phone and dial my brother's cell.

"Yo." His voice sounded scratchy like he was asleep.

"Hey brother." I greeted.

"Harry. You really are back." He said a bit surprised.

"And you know me; mayhem follows." I laughed.

"Its one of the things I like about you." He jested. "So is that why you had me spend the night in my boat? Something going down on creepy island?"

"What? I never asked you that?"

"Molly did. Said you'd be stopping by."

"Oh. Well I'm headed out now. I'll see you soon." I replied before hanging up. "Thanks for giving Thomas a heads up. He said he's already at his boat."

"Huh? I never said anything." Molly said perplexed.

"We better get over there pronto." I said, suddenly afraid for my brother. Betty came out of another room and hugged herself while she approached.

"Butters will watch Maggie, you want a wolf along?"

"The less people seen with me the better. He Who Walks Beside is in town. I don't want her targeting you again." I replied.

"_He_ Who Walks Beside is a _her_?" Betty asked.

"She prefers to be called Helena. I had a nice little chat with her before the fairies assaulted me." Bob snorted back a laugh at my expense. I spotted him on a table by the door where the keys were thrown and tiny shoes were kicked off under it. "I think I should go alone."

"Hell no. You got a posse like it or not." Mike said, grabbing his keys. "Come on, Thomas is waiting."

"You'll get hurt." I warned him as I grabbed the skull.

"It's a risk I'm willing to take to get you to that island and save this city." Mike strode defiantly to the door and nodded to me. I guess I had no choice. "You really have no choice in the matter." Nope guess not.

Chapter Six

We were greeted at the marina by my brother. He had cut his hair again, most likely at Lara's behest considering he was one of the two new Barons of Chicago. On the half hour it took to putter the Water Beetle to Demon Reach I explained what had happened got a couple backhanded "should have called" comments from my family and friends assembled, and learned what was going on with the remaining vampire courts.

The black court had grown exponentially. They infested Under Town resurfacing now and then to cause mayhem, pick off some vagrants or prostitutes, and go back below. Baron Marcone finally bought the police and instated a sort of Special Investigations in each precinct that specialized in vampire hunting. He also provided a SWAT team for anything too bad for mortals. This was captained by Joseph Murphy. Jo has 15 Einhejaren, some practitioners who volunteered here and there , two consultants that weren't human but beyond that no one had a clue, and 5 humans who were particularly adept in this sort of thing including Elizabeth.

Thomas knew Elizabeth. He once flirted with her to get me out of a ticket for parking in the load/unload only area at the airport. I didn't know he was my brother at the time. She stopped by my apartment for a couple booty calls… to Thomas while he was living with me. Oh she hated me. She thought I was a con man, because magic isn't real. Needless to say she sings a different tune these days.

"Lara put me in charge of Chicago. She was going to have Felicia do it, but… Felicia is the black sheep of the family."

"More so than you?"

"You kidding? I'm the brother that lived, I'm learning magic, and I'm pretty good at this entrepreneurship thing. Besides, I'm the only one still human enough to raise Dorian" Thomas boasted.

"Who's Dorian?"

"Lara's 3-year-old daughter. Cute little thing."

"That's a pretty cool name for a little girl." I mumbled as I spotted the island. "You better hang out on the boat. Arm yourselves in case of trouble." I warned the others. "Mab is protecting me from the Nevernever, but that doesn't mean the things already here won't make a pass at us."

"Why can't we come along?" Michael asked skeptically.

"I have a feeling the island doesn't _want_ anyone else but Harry on it right now." Molly answered.

"Why doesn't it marry him then?" Thomas jested.

"It kind of did." I answered.

"Geophile." Thomas called me as I vaulted the rails, moored the boat, and ran off up the hill, down the ungodly amount of stairs, then into a chamber where I usually found Demon Reach or Silence. I've called him so many names since I met him. I had been inside the tunnels a couple times. The island felt comforting to me somehow. I kept getting the feeling that I had been on the island before. I never had but I already knew every nook and cranny. When I fought the denarians on the island, I managed to get there and save the girl and Marcone, but then I was cornered. The island swallowed us into its caverns and I had to claw us out through the old cannery. That way closed up behind us. I pulled Bob out of my jacket and set him on the desk then whistled. Demon Reach emerged by phasing through the crystalline walls.

"TROUBLE." Demon Reach said. To say he 'said it' was a gross oversimplification. His voice was like standing inside a foghorn while it went off.

"Meep." Bob whimpered.

"Yeah, boy? Timmy stuck in the well?" I couldn't help myself. Demon Reach has no sense of humor and doesn't know pop culture. He pondered that for a moment then shook his head.

"WELL UNDER ATTACK." He said reaching a hand toward Bob. "LEARN PURPOSE." At that moment Bob began to glow, I instinctively retracted in an attempt to protect the spirit but I couldn't budge him from that spot in space. I let go and watched his light with fascination until it became too bright to look. I closed my eyes and turned away, shouting for Bob to see if he was okay, and then it all went dark. When I opened my eyes I was on the shore but it was odd somehow. The sky was different and there was no town on the island. In fact, the island it's self was a bit sparse, not at all the impressive stronghold I'd come to know it to be. I looked at the water line and a violently purple tear formed, and out came Obi-Wan Kenobi played by Alec Guinness. This one had a longer beard and a knobby oak staff instead of a light saber but otherwise I was standing there with a dead Jedi.

I followed Old Ben up the hill where he performed a ritual on where the light house would be, then he moved along the island in a specific pattern, having to terraform obstacles out of his way instead of move a single step out of theirs. He terraformed land to rise to his feet when he would have otherwise met water. All the while continuing his ritual. The whole process brought him back to the middle and he painstakingly pulled stones out of the ground, cast layers of spells into them and set them in place until at last a tower was formed above ground, and a square pit was formed beneath. Old Ben turned, theatrically swishing his cloak in the air and returned to his tear in space-time. The sky fast-forwarded, the sun and moon chased each other across the sky like a time-lapse and soon it stopped, maybe a hundred years later so I could watch Old Ben do it all over again. By the third or fourth repetition I realized he was doing the exact same thing, every detail the same in every aspect. Then I heard Bob's voice correct me.

"He's not doing the one thing multiple times, he's doing the one thing _at_ multiple times." Bob explained. I got a queasy feeling like I was lifting into the air quickly but my feet felt my weight and I stumbled drunkenly for a moment watching the landscape zoom away. A visualization of a ball made of five pentacles horizontal and five vertical surrounded the island so the tower was the center of the sphere and the symbols encompassed the entire island. A much larger pentacle was around that at the bottom of the lake, with its center encompassing the entire island.

"Obi-Wan made the island?"

"It's supposed to be Merlin. Honestly." Bob said exasperated.

"But why did Merlin make it? Why in Chicago? W-why…. And _how_?" I began to sputter; too many questions. When I focused on the power in those spells my brain hurt.

"Sorry habib, I'm dumbing it down all I can. There's still quite a lot even I can't comprehend." Bob explained. Now _that_ was a scary thought. Not much stumped Bob. "But the nitty gritty is this: Merlin made the island and worked magic into it, and then he worked hundreds of layers of spells into every stone in that tower and the stairwell down, as well the shack."

"That's… impossible." I exclaimed. Bob continued over me.

"And somehow he has neutered old entropy because if it is a problem it's not a particularly noticeable problem like for most spells."

I whistled to show appreciation. "So why's the island about to explode?" I asked. "Staying off the bleeding of energy isn't equivalent to building up energy to nuke town proportions."

"No but I'm trying to show that this island doesn't have a normal relationship with time-space here. I'm sure a physicist would have a conniption fit if they came here, even without the creepy vibes." Bob's voice drawled. The west part of the inner most circle of spells began to glow and pulse red energy, growing and growing until the spells shattered, blue glittery light erupted and all that energy poured in erupted and it all went white. "This power build up? I think its like a shock wave in reverse… I think its like a reverse echo from the explosion that _will_ happen; November first to be exact." Bob concluded his presentation and the illusion dropped. So did Bob. I fumbled him for a moment then looked at Demon Reach.

When a Naagaloshii kidnapped my brother and I had to save Morgan from being made a scapegoat for the wizard Council, I had known the island was a prison. I got a tour. I trapped that Naagaloshii under this island as a matter of fact. "Okay. I think I get it, which usually means I don't but I'll stop the bad guys, I have to or kablooey. Right?" Silence nodded. I call him silence because he came to me when I was a ghost and I assumed that was who he was, considering I had just met Inez. I'm starting to think whomever made Silence modeled it after this guy. They weren't actually the same but it was a shorter name. "Okay so I have to murder an immortal at the behest of her mother, the Queen of air and darkness, an outsider and her time hopping warlock is giving my enemies winning lotto numbers, and now I have to stop someone from blowing up the island only it _could_ have happened at any time in history or the future but the island is gonna blow November 1st if I don't figure that out, giving me roughly 18 hours to do it. It must be Tuesday." I exclaimed to Bob while sullenly trudging up the stairs.

"There is an upside boss. All these stairs, you're going to have great glutes!" by the time I got back to the boat it was almost sunrise. I tossed Thomas his ropes and hopped aboard then rubbed my head. The headache that was a constantly throbbing pressure for the past three years was intensifying. It may have been the 6 months away from my body but I felt like it was getting worse now. Once I heard Mab talk about the headaches like it was a thing inside my head that I could feel moving like how much women seem to suffer the last month of pregnancy. When I asked she evaded, so I dropped it.

I watched the sun rise for a while, just breathing, letting myself feel the calmness of water travel. Molly stood beside me. I examined the nature playing with her hair, blowing it in the breeze, and coloring it with the light. Her face wasn't the little girl I remembered. I hadn't noticed before but she changed a whole lot. Okay I noticed but it wasn't anything deep. Now it really hit me. I felt it first: A sudden wave of sickening dread followed by a jolt of adrenalin. My wizard senses were tingling. The sound came next, so after cocking and turning my head like a satellite searching for a signal, I found it in time to witness jet skis barreling toward the Water Beetle.

"Ruh-Roh" I mimicked Scooby Doo. Michael Murphy was staring me down when I looked over at him. He shook whatever he was thinking then spotted what I saw and pulled out his gun.

"Good idea, buddy, Thomas, you got a gun for me?" I asked. Thomas tossed me a lever action Winchester and an ammo belt. "Is this a spaghetti western?" I asked him. He muttered something in Italian. I wished I had his flair for language but he traveled the world picking them up like souvenirs and most of the time his teachers were very passionate and generous with his lessons. And flexible as he tells it. "I can't see em." I grumbled peering hard at the skis. Thomas tossed me a shiny copper telescope that extended and everything. "Seriously? Got an eye-patch too? Maybe we can go with a theme."

"Ever since those movies with pirate Legolas you can find those everywhere. I got a sextant too."

"Any tent you're in becomes a sex tent." I snarked at him. "Yo ho. Thar be 6 fairy skallywaggs off the…" I shouted/growled to the others. "What's right?" I asked my brother.

"Starboard." He told me.

"Off the starboard bow, says I." I growled again. "Hoist the sails, swab the deck, scuttle your butt, and draw the blank… drink up me hardies, yo ho!" I commanded. Molly laughed a little too hard but I always found laughter was the best way to face danger. The bad guys always took me for insane or so powerful they were a joke to me. Molly saw first hand how disturbing that approach could be, and learned well how to use it. Thomas threw his head back to laugh, but Michael wore a face that read 'you've all taken crazy pills'.

They shot the telescope out of my hand. I made a sound a grown man shouldn't be capable of, and then Michael began to laugh as insanely as the rest of us. "Okay Thomas, you know I can't shoot. I can drive a boat better than I can shoot." I said to my brother. Six more shots whizzed by.

"I got ya." Thomas handed me the wheel and took the gun. As the skis got closer I heard Michael take the first shot. Another shot fired from Thomas, and then six more shots came for us far more accurately this time. I decided to stay on a straight course for the marina and held the boat still. Michael and Thomas calmly returned fire.

"MOLLY! Mollymollymollymolly-"

"WHAT?" She demamded crouching away from the gunfire."

"Mist! I need mist!"

"Harry I can't do that! You know I'm no good with that kind of-"

"Not real mist!" I shouted to her.

"Oh. Ooooh." She expressed realization. She closed her eyes and focused then mist rose around us.

"Perfect. They'll have to come close now." BANG! Before the mist could completely conceal us, a shot came awful close and I flinched. A second of panic more than regular adrenalin hit me. I had been shot before and my brain was telling me it happened again. After that I had to rationalize the feeling away. My stomach was sick and my mind was racing and frozen at the same time. I breathed a resolute breath, examined myself and felt relief that I was lacking any bullet holes. But I did find blood. Silvery blood, and I followed it to my brother sprawled beside me. In my tunnel vision of panic I didn't see it or hear it.

"Thomas? I went to my brother and found his pulse. He was bleeding a lot but alive for now. The bullet hit him in the stomach. It was painful but he would live. I tied his shirt and my jacket around his wound then thought furiously for an end game. I cut the speed and waited for them. "Molly! Drop the mist on my signal."

I listened in for the skis coming close and gunned it shouting the signal and the veil dropped. The skis couldn't know how close they were. Once the veil dropped they were short seconds away. They swerved around us. Old red cap was among them, accelerating straight for us. I shouted "Hexus!" the handles of his ski twisted out his hands and fire and smoke bellowed out the tail end. I didn't bother to watch what happened to him, as I was too busy running the boat over one of the other skiers. Michael picked off two and Molls hexed the fourth, leaving just two. Michael got them before I even gave them a thought.

"I think that's all of them." Mike said, clearing the ship like a cop.

"Thomas is hit!" I cried out. Michael and Molly rushed to help him. Molly brought a massive toolbox with a red lid and a cartoonish white circle with red cross. Michael looked Thomas over and affirmed the bullet went clean through. He mopped the blood and cleaned and dressed the wound.

"When we get to shore I'll rush him to the hospital." Michael said. "Fun blinky lights and everything." He assured me.

"No call George, the uh family physician. He's use to vampires and he'll come to us."

"He better be some kind of surgeon." Michael suggested.

"With 200 years of experience. He's a Malvora who liked Lara's way of doing things better than his family."

"Like Mafia family?" Michael raised a brow. I shrugged then rattled off the number and Michael got away from us wizards to call. The George (pronounced hor-hay) Malvora, but called George for short, sped to the marina. He only got there three minutes after we moored the boat. He came aboard the boat with a duffel bag of instruments and put his hands on Thomas's wound. He smirked then cleaned the area up anesthetized him and sewed him up. I got that feeling again and looked around. Poor Molly was beat, snoring on the upper deck with her belly exposed like a cat.

Red cap returned but he wasn't alone. On the other side was Ace with a whole swarm of dewdrops and pixies. "Hells Bells." Thomas was down on the lower deck under surgery, Molly was too zonked out to help, and Mike was a good shot but the swarms of fairies were too fast and too small. I rushed off the boat. First thing was to draw them away from Thomas. Michael followed me then snapped open his collapsible baton with a trained gesture. I murmured a summoning under my breath then looked over the water at a jet ski with the two sidhe who survived. I moved to the water's edge and plunged my hand in, focusing a spell. Just as the Jet Ski got close enough, I called "glaciarus" and frozen spikes shot out of the water to impale the ski and it's driver. Red cap dove into the water vanishing. I heard the flutter of fairy fliers near by but looked to watch Michael perform a few practiced swings to deflect the horde. There was no way he could have hit them by seeing them and aiming, it was all instinct.

I could distinguish my own fairies because they flashed cold colors and when they came close I could make out the bright orange craft razors I gave them for weapons. A gold Ford Escape whipped into the marina parking lot and out came a man with a shot gun and a chip on his shoulder. He popped off some shots into a cloud of fairies not caring which side was hit, then aimed at Ace.

Fix could have been there for any reason. He hated Ace: they were friends for a while but when the wizard-vampire war began, he sided with the vampires for protection and arranged for Lilly to go with him, and only Lilly. But the winter knight- the one before me- kidnapped Lilly and Ace ended up shooting Fix's girlfriend trying to kill me, helping the bad guys hold Lilly captive in the process. But life isn't that convenient, especially not for me. I was the winter knight, and Fix was my summer counterpart. Fix was here to keep me from doing whatever I was doing.

Ace had a shotgun and an aluminum bat handy and decided to use the gun. Fix, short, plain, young Fix shot Ace in the chest. Ace must have worn a bulletproof vest because he only staggered back and fired a shot at Fix. Fix charged him brazen as can be. When Ace pulled the trigger he didn't exactly aim and he was sporting slugs. All that added up to Ace wasted a bullet and Fix kicked his ass. The fairies retreated, swarming all over Fix to give Ace a chance to escape. Well I wasn't going to let one good deed go unpunished so I sent an arctic blast at the swarm of little folk. Fix let off two more shots into the critters, but they planned to leave with Ace anyhow. They left a lot faster with cold air and buckshot motivating them.

I walked cautiously up to Fix and offered him a hand up off the ground, which he pointedly declined and then we stood looking at each other for a moment. "How ya doin, Fix?"

"I'm feeling a bit conflicted to be honest. I thought I knew you… then you went and joined up with Mab."

"I had my reasons. I'm still Harry Dresden, I just twirl my mustache from time to time." I replied. He scoffed and nodded. "So I presume you're here to keep me from doing my job."

"When your job is to murder people, mine is to keep that from happening, yeah." Look at fix, all grown up and saying cool lines to the bad guys! Too bad the bad guy in his movie was me.

"Listen, man, I like it just as much as you do, but the problem is: I have to… not because my queen says so but because she's trying to kill me." I explained rationally. To this Fix gave me a perplexed look. "Do you even know who I'm supposed to kill?"

"It doesn't matter. Mab has no right to choose who lives and dies."

"Point of fact, she does. Summer heralds over new life, winter over death. Hey I had to read this junk out of a book, don't Fae get it downloaded into their brains like in the matrix?"

"I never chose."

"Explains why you're over 4 feet." I held my hands out to show I wasn't hostile and thankfully Mike holstered his gun and did the same. "Fix, please, I won't fight you. You may be my opposite, but we were friends… I hope to keep it that way."

"Me too… the problem isn't you, its Mab."

"She hasn't redecorated my brain yet; were still looking at wall paper swatches." Fix tried not to smirk.

"You don't get it… Lloyd Slate was a real monster."

"I feel like Maeve was the mad scientist behind _that_ monster. Mab is a little off her rocker but she isn't the bloodthirsty war monger we paint her as, and I'm not whatever Lloyd Slate was."

"No, you're more. I was powerless against him, smaller than him, too weak and timid… but I got stronger and got this power… and then _you_ became the knight, and now I'm weak and tiny again." He said bitterly. "The things you can do when you cut loose…"

"Fix… I've felt that way against some things I've faced."

"So you understand, I can't let you get away with anything. I can't give you an inch or you'll take the continent."

"You give me too much credit." I laughed. "Fix, I'm still me. I'm still Harry. You can trust me."

"I trusted Harry before, but now Harry belongs to Mab."

"Damn it I'm not a cockerspaniel!" I stomped my foot. "I got 17 hours to stop the Midwest from blowing up and decide if I wanna kill Maeve. I'm not going to do it without figuring out why I was told to, but I also have to figure out when exactly the Midwest is going boom. Can we take this badinage on the road or something?"

"Woah. What? Maeve? Why would Mab tell you to kill her own daughter?"

"THAT'S WHAT I WANT TO KNOW! Oh uh… Don't tell her… or anyone else okay? Mab has given me the ability to say no. It'll hurt but she likes me."

"I noticed." Fix said under his breath. To my quizzical look he blushed. "I mean that thing a year ago, on the stone table."

"You saw that!?" my face went red.

"All of Fairy saw it." Blue! I'm sure I blushed hard enough to turn blue.

"Tell me you had to do the same thing when you became the summer knight." I pinched the bridge of my nose.

"I did, but it wasn't televised like the presidential address." Fix blushed nearly blue himself. I let out an exasperated breath and silently swore at my queen. I hope she heard it too. "Uh, well, I guess all things considered, I should give you time. I don't really have a choice like you. I stop you tonight or I fail. There's nothing else."

"Maybe if I smooth things out with your supervisor… I have some things I need to ask Lilly. You think you can arrange a meeting for me?" Fix narrowed his eyes. After some thought he nodded.

"Noon at the Chicago Botanic Gardens. Once the meeting ends the truce is over." Fix said climbing back into his SUV and leaving. About ten feet behind where he was, my apprentice shimmered back into visibility.

"How long have you been there?"

"Since I told Colin to put his gun away." Molly answered cheerily.

"No fair."

"Um, someone once told me, if I'm ever in a fair fight some one made a mistake."

"What a jerk." I said patting my apprentice on the head. I felt her silky un-dyed hair and reveled in the feel before letting go. It had been a while since I touched a warm human aside from my dance with Sarissa, and the fight with Helena. Molly made a sort of tense face then pepped up when she saw Thomas. Mike didn't look to pleased, maybe standoffs get under his skin. Thomas stumbled off the boat on his own strength and we half hugged. "Doing alright Bro?"

"Swell."

"Good, because I have a plan. Where can I make a phone call that will be overheard by Lara?"

"My apartment, I guess, why?"

"Uh-uh, No spoilers." I said in my best Nick Frost impression. Thomas has a silver Humvee, very compensating, only for him it wasn't, which upset me more than if it was. When we got to his apartment a three-year-old girl greeted him warmly followed by Justine. They were drawing letters on a coffee table in the living room. It changed a bit from how it was before. Instead of looking like those prestine lifeless living rooms on the cover of rich jerk magazines, Thomas learned white furniture and children don't mix, and promptly switched to a bright red modern but comfy sectional, a chair that looked like a high heel, and a glass coffee table atop an Indian rug full of browns and reds.

"Harry, this is my niece, Dorian." Thomas lifted her up. Her hair was bone straight but curled lazily at the ends, much like Thomas's. Her eyes were silver and shaped much like Thomas's and her chin matched his too, while the rest of her was nearly identical to Lara's the lips were too big and plump, her eyes just under too big but still quite large, and the lashes too long and thick. She looked a bit tall for three, wearing a pink plaid romper dress and white blouse.

"Hello." She said in a cute little voice.

"Hi, Dorian. Nice to meet you." I shook her little hand. Already she had the feel of a practitioner. "Wow, the Raith family resemblance is uncanny. She looks like a carbon copy of her mother."

"Meh. She's a lot like her dad too."

"He a practitioner?"

"Uh-uh, no spoilers!" Thomas shot back at me. While I was making my phone call, Thomas was teaching Dorian to throw… plushies and pillows… at _me_. I caught one and pegged Thomas with it as I spoke, eliciting giggles and cheery little girl screams, then hung up and unplugged the phone.

"Hey folks unplug anything you don't want to explode." I suggested. After a pause I drew a circle around the phone, sealed it with an effort of will, all being observed intently by Dorian I might add, then once people stopped scrambling to unplug stuff I put out my hands and commanded "Hexus!" the entire apartment went black with a fizzle and some sparks. Dorian laughed and jumped clapping.

"Don't teach her that!" Thomas scolded me.

"Grasshopper?" I said to Molly. She nodded and swept the room for magic bugs. With a thumb up we began plugging everything back in and Molly took a walk up and down the hall outside the apartment. She returned, thumb upped me again, then people understood they could talk again.

"Why didn't you do that before the phone call?" Thomas asked.

"I needed Lara to know who I contacted first. Her folks will have to pop their heads out and betray their positions in order to learn anything more."

"Then whoever you called will be able to see how they were being spied on. It was a favor?"

"Payment." I shrugged.

"Right because fairies don't do favors."

"You calling me a fairy?"

"Well I haven't seen you with any women in a while." My brother drawled.

I had Dorian toss an angry little red bird toy at Thomas then addressed the troops. "Okay, everybody, be cool. Something strange is about to go down."

Mike snorted "Yeah? Like what?"

"Cat Sith." I called. "I request your presence please." The darkness under the fancy coffee table congealed into the form of a cat. It was possibly larger than Mister but all muscle and grace. As Justine turned on a light, it flicked it's tail that could circle it's body twice, and glared at her with bright yellow eyes. She got the point and turned it off, but his eyes didn't become any less visible. He stalked over to Dorian and sniffed her, purring patiently waiting to be pet by the child, then looked at me, narrowed his eyes as if to say "oh its you." Then bowed courteously.

"How may I serve you, sir knight?" everyone but Dorian and I reacted somewhat expectedly. I watch a lot of Japanese horror movies so really messed up things don't affect me as strongly but even I get disturbed by Cat Sith's voice. Molly asked how it passed the threshold, Thomas asked what the hell it was, Mike just swore, and Justine picked up Dorian defensively.

"The Fae can pass a threshold by going directly from the Nevernever. The hitch is they have to be peaceful, benign to the inhabitants. Uh… help me out here." My eyes adjusted so I could see Sith's fur. It was many diferent shades of purple, shifting in waves like vertical stripes moving down his form. He leapt up to my shoulder then moved to the other side to crouch on that one as if he was about to pounce on Justine.

"As long as I am in your home I am to behave as an invited guest. The moment I break such behavior, I will be expelled from within your threshold." Sith explained. "Such a lovely child, sir knight. May I keep her?"

"NO." Thomas, Justine and I said in unison.

"Oh, but you already have so many." Sith complained. I personally only had the one, but maybe the fairy murder cat just assumed all children within my area were mine to offer him. I shuddered to think what he would do with any kid I gave him. Sith rolled his eyes. "_Fugit inreparabile tempus_. Why have you summoned me, sir knight?"

"We are about to leave but some folks will be out there watching us. I would like you to distract them- without killing or disemboweling anyone." I added as an afterthought. The cat's claws extended as his grip on my shoulder tightened. He wasn't trying to hurt me but he was a roughly 40lb feline killing machine perched on a 7 square inch space. It was starting to grow sore just from the weight. "Consider it a compliment. Anyone can kill their enemy and be done with it. I'm asking you to do something that requires flair." Still no reaction. The phone rang while Sith gave me every measure of stink eye so I answered it. "Go for Doughnut boy."

"Accorded neutral territory, ten minutes."

"Thanks, I needed a beer." I answered. After a confused pause the caller hung up. "Sith?" the weight on my shoulder lifted as if the cat jumped off, but it's body faded away, leaving its eyes to fade last. "Showboat." I grumbled. "We gotta be at Mac's in ten. Lets go."

Chapter Seven

"Donar Vadderung, CEO of Monoc Securities?" Thomas sputtered when we entered the pub. "This is who you were threatening over the phone?"

"Meh" I answered shrugging nonchalantly.

"Glagh!" Thomas retorted.

"Is he a big deal?" Molly asked.

"He's _the_ big deal." Thomas replied. "Where do you think all those Vikings came from?" Thomas asked her. Mike winced. He had to do some research about Einherjaren to understand what his brother's task force was comprised of, so being the smart guy he is, Mike figured Donar must be some sort of old Norse god or somewhere between that and an undead berserker killing machine. Either way, it was impressive and frightening. "And Harry tipped him off that my sister was spying on him. She'll have me neutered for this."

"Tell her it was all me, you had no idea." I told him. "Take a load off, grab some chow."

"Wait, are we minions?" Molly asked.

"You might be; I'm a sidekick. Its higher on the totem pole."

"Yeah you're high if you think I'm taking orders from you." Molly argued playfully with Thomas as they went to a table in the back. Thomas said something I couldn't hear half way and came back to me. Mike stayed and glared at me.

"Okay, whats the problem, Mike, you've been mean dogging me since I got back." I asked.

"I want you to stop staring at my girlfriend." Mike demanded. I was flabbergasted.

"Wh-Whaat? No, I…"

"Yeah, I was hoping to mention it before Mike noticed." Thomas interjected. "It's a predator thing. You notice when she yawns, when she sneezes, when shes vulnerable. You look at her like Mister looks at a mouse."

"Mister looks at Mouse a lot differently now that he can eat him." I grumbled. "Okay. So the winter thing has me peto-balling Molly, where do we go from here?"

"Knowing is half the battle." Michael said.

"You gotta get some." Thomas nodded.

"Yeah as soon as I save the world again, lets go trolling for honeys." I scoffed.

"Harry, I'm serious, if you suppress or ignore it, it will take on a mind of it's own." Thomas said seriously.

"Looking at pretty ladies?" I asked skeptically. "Let me talk to Donar first, and then I'll let you take me girl hunting."

"Or hunting in general. It's a predator; sexual or otherwise." Thomas shrugged.

"Yeah, well, thanks for the pep talk guys. Work now please." I said leaving them to sit with Donar.

"Well. Rumors-death-cliché." Donar said approvingly. I bowed with a flourish of the hand. "You deserve a beer."

"I haven't had a beer in a lifetime." I said thankfully.

"So, what do you want?"

"Advice?"

"My 2 cents, eh?"

"Lucy charged a nickel." I replied. To that Donar nodded.

"Give me a nickel and I'll give you my 2 cents."

"Uh, I'm kind of short."

"What do you have?"

I fished the inside of my pockets out. "Uh"

"You have friends." Donar suggested. I jogged back and got a nickel from Mike, then sat with Donar. "Talk to me."

"Well it's uh, about time."

"No its about your island." After looking at him for however long my internal dialogues usually last I explained my predicament. "Idiots. Even if they survive the banefire."

"Banefire?"

"intense fire to kill all the prisoners."

"Right. The fail-safe."

"If the Banefire doesn't obliterate them along with the better part of North America, any surviving… things that come out will surely do the trick. There are creatures down there… legends tell what their release portends, I'm sure I need not stress the matter."

"Are you saying Fenrir is down there?" I asked, and from Donar's body language I deduced I was right. "Hells Bells."

"Fenrir, Chthulu… some elder things and violent old gods."

"Hells BELLS…" I sat back. "I'm out of my depth." Donar laughed.

"No, son, you just haven't recognized your potential yet… you will."

"But the island… for all I know the thing I'm supposed to stop happened years ago, or will happen years after the explosion."

"No, no, even on that island time behaves relatively predictably. There are laws that govern everything on that island as they do in physics and magic. Instead, forget the time-space paradoxical bla, bla, bla. A paradox is an overated threat anyhow."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean things that have already happened have a strong compulsion to happen again. The bigger more important the event, the more likely, no matter what is changed before, that it will happen again."

"A sort of law of conservation of History."

"Yes. Now think; If the island is going to blow up at a specific time and date, when would someone logically in a non magical world have to lay the charges?"

"Minutes before the boom." I said. Donar sipped his spiked coffee. "I can't believe I needed to have someone else tell me that. At least it only cost me a nickel. So I'm actually having an unrelated time crisis right now." Donar lifted a quizzical brow. "Theres a warlock medeling in the time-space continuum as we speak. He and an outsider are here telling my enemies everything I did in their reality. I'm doing my own thing but I'm me with my own natural tendancies so most of the time he accurately predicts my every move. He was the one who killed me-"

"But you weren't supposed to die so you came back." Donar concluded. "Like I said before, the original events that the original you experienced will transpire somewhat the same, the little details will be off, but the bottom lines are doomed to read the same."

"That kind of makes me feel like a clone or something."

"Well if he is here from another possible future, I'm sorry Harry but that's exactly what you- _we all_ are. When he goes back he creates a new dimension, maybe even two, the theory is sound but no one cares to test it… a reality where he comes back and successfully changes things, one he doesn't come back at all, and one he does not change things."

"Mind. Blown."

"But you feel real, do you not?"

"Yeah."

"Then why cheapen that by labeling yourself a clone. His actions were inevitable; therefore it was inevitable that they would create you. Therefore you were fated to be, and are real. People believe there are numerous different dimensions stemming from every 50/50 chance. You and the time traveler's Harry are no more or less significant than each other in each of your respective realms."

"This is just too deep." I held my pounding head. It was getting worse. "So… ah, how close to the island will the charges have to be set?"

"I'd say on the shore."

"The west beach, that's where the kablooey has to start… ah. But its too hard to even find it let alone stand being on it, and there will have to be a ritual, circles… ah. A big source of energy." My head, oh god, my skull!

"Are you quite alright?" Donar asked. I dropped to the floor, feeling nothing could hurt as bad as my head at the moment. Molly got in my face and I could see the sweat coming out of her pores as she focused, and then I was out.

"Harry! Harry!" Molly called. I blinked for a second regaining my senses. I was on the floor, everyone around me, and Mortimer stood at my head holding a… child in his arms. My shirt was covering her like a dress. "Oh Harry, thank goodness. Why didn't you tell us you were pregnant?" Molly asked.

"Uh, I didn't want you to think less of me. I don't know who the father is." I played along.

"I'm serious, it was a difficult delivery but… It's a girl."

"Stop fooling around Molly, what happened?" I looked at Molly.

"You fell, Donar told me to scope out your brain and I found your subconscious hording a little girl. I could tell she was another thing from you and she was growing. If she kept growing it would split your skull open so I called Morty asking for a vessel, he just showed up seconds later, helped me extract the spirit, then he made her… solid." Molly explained. The girl was beautiful, had my hair, my shape of eyes… hey… something reminded me of something there for a second.

"Laciel. The girl in my brain… she must have rebuilt herself with parts of me and-"

"Not quite. This is not a fallen angel, this is an air spirit." Morty advised me. Like Bob. "You better give her a name. Whisper it to her." Mortimer advised me. I got up, feeling dizzy but for the first time in years pain free. I pet the sleeping child's hair and whispered into her ear. Her eyes fluttered open to reveal Laciel's greenish blue colored eyes. My heart kind of fluttered a bit when she looked at me. The profound connection we shared went beyond anything describable in the universe. She was beautiful. She looked maybe 12, gangly as I was at that age, but already starting to get those tell tale signs of womanhood. I took her into my arms, making sure she was covered enough, and pressed her against my cheek.

"Daddy?" she asked.

"Your life, man." Mike laughed shaking his head. "You're a man, who just gave birth to a tween in the middle of a bar."

"Well if a man was gonna do it, I can't imagine a better place." Thomas remarked.

"Well, I am out of time. This has been… an experience, for sure. Judging from what you said about the time traveler, I feel you can presume you will be victorious tonight." Donar said with a wolfish grin. "And your little one there has the honor of calling two gods her godfathers no less." He smirked. There was sound of struggle outside, the windows were caked with thick fog, and I realized it was very dark in the pub.

"Uh, yeah, there were distractions, but I'm having them dealt with." Morty explained.

"Ah. Okay, down to business."

"Really? You can't take like maternity leave or something?" Molly asked.

"I feel great. Molls, get Toot and his crew to patrol the shore, offer pizza to buy their loyalty, drop my name too."

"Gotcha… Money?" she asked me. I looked at Thomas and he tossed her a blank white card with a magnetic strip. "Uh…"

"limitless credit card for 24 hours from the first purchase. And its all yours." Thomas tried to sound nonchalant. Michael scowled at him and took the card, then left with Molly and a totally cool and composed Morty.

"Could you bring the little lady back home with you aswell? It might get harry out there." I asked, passing the little one to her.

"Yeah, harry is your middle name." Molly jested. The fighting must have stopped because no new sounds came in through the open door. But a dame did. She sauntered her sexy five foot noting ass over to the bar and planted her palms on the bar before swishing her hips a little to make sure she had every man's attention in the room. Mac froze, looking intently at her face. She laughed that sexy laugh I love, then turned and crooked her finger sensually at me.

"Thomas, watch my back." I said, practically gravitating toward her.

"Yeah, go get her tiger!" Thomas cheered me on. I had to give her one thing: she had style. Today she wore black pumps, with fishnet stockings, short black stretchy high waist pencil skirt and a nigh see-through canary yellow sleeveless top tucked into it with nothing underneath. Her hair was cut short into a wedge that was neck length in the back and down to the tips of her perky little breasts in the front. Her hair was in wide ringlets again, one side tucked behind the ear. Black clunky jewelry and vintage style makeup completed her punk ass Audrey Hepburn thing. She smelled amazing too.

"Harry. Like the new haircut? I salvaged what I could from when you burned me last night." Mac's hands were out of sight so I wasn't aware what he was doing until I heard the shotgun chamber a round.

"Don't talk, kill her." Mac warned me.

"Mind your business watcher, this is neutral territory remember? Both sides come her to talk." Helena countered.

"You aren't on either side!" Mac seethed. It was strange enough to hear complete sentences out of him let alone any sort of hostility. Mac seemed to really hate Helena. "She is the second." He said to me.

"And I just dissuaded the first from busting in here and destroying your fine establishment to get to the Wizard. I like him." She eyed me approvingly. My pants felt particularly undersized. Without warning, Mac fired. Helena dodged then ripped the gun from his hand and bent it like a strong-man with rebar. "Watcher! Stay out of this like you always have before."

"You know each other?" I asked.

"I'm Out." He said sternly. Helena laughed.

"We need to get a move on." Thomas piped up. "It's a pleasure to meet you miss…"

"Handbasket." She replied, offering a hand. Thomas guided her hand to his lips. "Helena Handbasket. Cute isn't it? Far better than He Who Walks Beside." Thomas's eyes went wide.

"Outsider?"

"Oh so you have heard of us? And my brother has agreed to behave himself. He is standing right outside. All we want is you Star Born." Helena pressed her body against mine. The soft creamy texture of her blouse against my bare chest, her warm squishy breasts, and her strong little hands in my hair… her lips… it was a pressure that prevented me from forming thought, a lot like the powers Lara used but more like… like the powers Cowl used in the deeps a few years ago. I became aware of the pressure in my head and deflected it. Helena rocked her head back as if I slapped her, then backed away from me.

"You're using mind control. Why? You outsiders move together, toward a purpose, and _I_ seem to be a part of it. Why?" I asked, a little out of breath.

"You are a link between our worlds. The confluence under which you were born… we have only seen one other such child long ago. Our worlds are so close because of you, and with you we can bring them closer!" she said excitedly.

"Why do you even want that?"

"I've watched your movies about trans-dimensional travelers, space women, and mechanized monsters from beyond your skies. You humans seem to have a fairly accurate grasp on what we want." Helena purred. Her effect on me was just that of a mildly pretty girl now. She was pretty but too strong and scary to be desirable any longer. Her face pained me. She tortured a good person to death- a child- to get that face. Hate boiled over within me, I noticed ice forming on my balled fist as if it was happening to someone else. Next thing I knew, I slammed said fist into her face, and grabbed her hair to pull her head into my knee. I followed up with a kick, and then an arctic gale came from no discernable source.

"Infriga!" I called, and in a span of seconds every surface was coated in an inch or so of ice. Her nipples reacted to the cold as expected, she winced from the soreness in her face and chest, then swatted at me like a fly, throwing us all out of her way so she could make her exit. She blew me a kiss before she got out the door.

"Mac, you knew her. You saw past her Karen costume, and she knew you."

"There are three of them."

"What else?"

"They're bad." He nodded for us to git, and it was nearing noon so we had to any way.

"We are going to talk about this." I warned him.

"No, we aren't" Mac replied as a matter of fact more than a threat.

Chapter Eight

I went to the eerily empty botanic gardens just outside the city to meet with Lilly. It was drizzling and dreary but her presence was like the sunshine and rainbow that comes after the rain. Summer fae were all over the place hidden and waiting to pounce at one misstep but I didn't make any. I was a perfect gentleman and even let her test me for corruption. I passed. Maeve showed up to tell me Mab was the crazy one, and that she liked my topless barbarian look. I had forgotten about the shirt my newborn tween stole from me. Together they explained there was a corruption a nemesis making folks bad against their will. I thought about my godmother and agreed the notion had merit.

I held my tong as Maeve tried to convince me of a few things. I mean she had to tell the truth but one could be telling what they believed to be true with upmost conviction and still be wrong. After that Maeve had her red cap and swishy sidhe attack me aided by Ace again. Boy that kid had daddy issues. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed but that's what sidekicks are for. I summoned Cat Sith to pick off the goon squad wishing he had prioritized the little folk who happen to fear cats, how convenient. No, but I was saved by a biker babe on a Harley Davidson Soft tail. I was on the ground, topless, covered in bruises and cuts from being beaten with a bat by ace and swarmed by a bunch of little folk with iron nails. I even got a new piercing. Captain Hook, the hook covered armored leader of Ace's bad fairies was stuck to my ribs by her hooks. Karen carefully removed the little guy and crammed him in her saddlebag.

"Karen!" I shouted excitedly, "Too excited?" I asked her after finishing my giddy dance.

"Waaay too excited." She said with a suspicious eyebrow.

"Sorry, how am I supposed to feel about a super powered cutie on a ghost Harley?" I asked, leaping to tackle-glompf the little blond. Instead I went through her, tripped, and fell. "Ouch."

"Sorry was I supposed to be solid for that?" she asked, trying to look innocent.

"Ow. I'll need a real hug for that." I grumbled, coming to my feet.

"God, you're a whiner." She said, throwing her arms over me to pull me down the staggering two feet to her level. Her skin barely felt like anything. No weight, heat, cold, or scent. She was able to interact with me and be visible to me but it almost didn't seem real. "I'm technically 11. You remember that right? Pedophile." She laughed and shook her head.

"You love it. Patrophile. I'm somebody's daddy you know?"

"Please don't make me call you daddy." She warned me humorously. I looked pointedly at the sun above then down at her.

"How?"

"I learned it from you! Okay?" she said like a teen asked where she learned to do drugs. "20 years! I've been a ghost for 20 years and It never occurred to me one didn't have to _be_ crazy to _act_ crazy."

"Sorry?" I apologized unsure. Thomas came out of the bushes then stopped to stare at Karen. "This isn't Helena, this is Karen." I told my brother before he shot her or something. It wouldn't really matter.

"Empty night, Harry your… your…"

"Body? Just get me to Molly's." Karen made the bike vanish but kept her saddlebags and got into the Humvee with us. Conversation might have occurred; I was too busy passing out from pain and weariness. My arms were beaten to jello, I had a ton of cuts and scrapes and a few deep stab wounds I hadn't even noticed getting, and I was fairly certain everything in my upper body was fractured or dislocated.

When I came to, people were talking in hushed tones to me, acting like I was a rampaging gorilla. "Harry? Calm down, we're just trying to help." Thomas said holding his hands up to me. Butters was standing aside in an apron covered in little pink spots of blood, no doubt just from leaning against my body. "Butters sewed you up, we're just cleaning the smaller wounds now, its almost over and we're out o the worst part." Thomas gave me his hand, I took it and figured the dining table was the operating table and I had swam off of it in my panic. The chandelier swung noisily, covered in icicles, the floor was wet, and there was frost and condensation on the table. "Harry?"

"I'm good. Sorry."

"No problem." Butters said. "Now lay back down, I'm not done. I just removed the last of the hook barbs when you jumped up blasting ice everywhere."

"Sorry." I mumbled. "Wheres Captain Hook?"

"In a pie. He's alive for now." Thomas responded. "Sitting in the oven" to my startled look he shrugged. "Its not _on_."

"Wheres Karen and Lash?"

"Lash is in the room with Dory and Maggie, playng with Carrie. That ghost chick turned into an 11-year-old girl and Maggie ran and hugged her like they were besties." Thomas said shivering.

"I had a feeling it was like that. I guess whatever Mort did for Lash is likewise for Karen." I got up painfully but couldn't waste time fussing. Thomas passed me a new shirt and I checked on the kids. Justine had likely come in the capacity of a snack for Thomas, and stayed to keep the new girl company. Lash seemed to know everyone but not feel anything in particular about anyone. Not surprising; she had all my memories but no perspective. Then I came back out. Daddy mode had to wait. "Okay, lets interrogate a fairy." I said rubbing my hands together. The interrogation went well. The fairy was a female, turns out, which was fun once Maggie got ahold of her. Lacuna, my hostage and guest sat with some barley tea and celery chopped into fine bits wearing an outfit from one of Maggie's Monster High dolls. It was better than hook covered armor.

I explained everything to the assembled folks including Justine and Karen, then gave assignments. "You know, its going to take a while for all this comes together." Justine began to explain.

"We only have until sun set." I warned everyone.

"Well in that time, you will be pretty useless. Maybe you should spend that time with the girls. Take them to get their Halloween costumes." Justine suggested.

"Good idea. That'll give Butters and me the chance to catch a scent of these outsiders too. I'm feeling a little cagey at the moment." Betty said with her South African accent.

I nodded "Good idea… but not yet. I need to visit gran' mama Winter first." I explained. I did, but Mother Summer took me on a tour of Mab's responsibilities.

Sometimes an academic understanding pales in comparison to the real thing. War for instance is both over and underwhelming for it's participants. A person could be doing a vital part for the cause and not even notice. You think the guys that maintenance war birds feel swollen with pride in what they do? Its just a job, hum drum, working for ass holes. The soldiers too, sitting in the same damn pit 12 to 20 hours a day, No, its boring… until someone tosses a frag in their pit, or a truck full of enemies barrels toward their gate. But to be looking over it all, coordinating things, watching soldiers, subordinates, friends leave in body bags, or just a fist full of dog tags come back, its daunting.

I got to be both an objective observer and an important part of the fight, because if I failed to kill the right person in the next ten hours this war could very well be turned for the worse. Outsiders beyond the outer gates, were making a play to breach the gates, the Gatekeeper filled me in on what a mere mortal could do, which seemed vastly disproportionate to what I felt I was capable of, but like Donar, Gatekeeper was certain I would do right. As soon as Summer let me out I showered and Sarissa stopped by to pass me a ransom note with hair to track my friends and save them.

"Karen, can you still be invisible?"

"Duh." Karen replied playfully.

"Good. I'll go in noisy through the front, you two invisible girl in through the back and free the prisoners." I explained in the car on our way to save the day. Molly and Karen nodded. When we arrived I just got out and did my thing, the girls did theirs, we saved Mac, James Murphy, and Butters, killed red cap for good, and I did some magic power lifting, made a glacier to save my friends from drowning under a demolished building, no big deal. We regrouped at Molly's and after nagging from all sides I was sent out the house with three little girls and Karen.

Maggie carried Dorian around the girl's section of the Halloween store. The isles were thick with patrons and gave me a degree of anxiety. These two little girls were my responsibility. I had to make sure they were safe and it was really hard when they were shorter than the tide of people between us. Lash was at least tall as the other tweens about. An attendant stopped them and spoke, too quiet for me to hear past the teens shouting excitedly over the costumes too revealing for their age, and there was no polite way around them so at last I gave up and pushed through them muttering apologies.

"Yes, we have Monster High costumes. Who did you want to dress up as?" the attendant asked.

"Draculara in a small for Dory and Elissabat in a medium for me, por favor." Maggie asked. "How about you Lash?"

"Uh… mmm that one." She pointed and Maggie nodded.

"Twyla in large, please." Maggie ordered. The attendant nodded then nearly bumped into me. I apologized then stepped aside to put a hands on Maggie and Lash to keep them from wandering off again.

"Your daughters are so precious." She complimented them.

"Thanks, uh the big two are mine, the other is their cousin."

"Well the family resemblance is uncanny." She said as she took the order to the back.

"HARRY!" Karen's voice called over the crowd. I thought I could make out a blond head in the throng but she too was shorter than most the customers. I laughed; most of them were high school kids. "Harry, this one is perfect for you!" I looked at it and agreed but it didn't feel great. I lifted the costume and the attendant returned to agree that it was perfect. I had to grab a few coordinated costumes with help from the attendant, but when we left, I had sufficiently run up a huge bill for Lara, appeased the children, and wasted half an hour shopping while the others consulted their resourses. Karen whipped the girls into a mob over ice cream after spotting the shop next door. Not like she could eat any. When we left she pretended to eat a waffle cone with strawberry mixed into an off white, likely vanilla or cheesecake flavored ice cream she must have constructed out of ectoplasm. She seemed like a cheesecake sort of girl.

I brought the girls back to Molly's apartment and everyone had returned and compiled a concise report for me. With visuals drawn on a map with incredible detail by Lacuna. One by one, we changed into costume. Maggie dawned a frilly black and purple Lolita style dress, Dorian sported pink and white preppy and equally frilly gothic dress. Lash was dolled up in her black and blurple Lolita stye outfit and was forced into a turquoise and blurple streaked wig by her sister until the two discovered she could will her hair to change colors. Dorian wore her hair in pigtails with pink clip in streaks. Karen wore tight BDU pants, combat boots, short turtleneck white shirt with no sleeves, and a cool harness looking tactical gear a 1911 in a holster was attached to the harness under her left arm, and an 8-point hat topped her head. She tugged at her fingerless gloves like she just put them on when she really just made herself _be_ in them.

Molly came out her room dressed much like me but without pants. She had amazing legs, long and shapely. Her spankies and thigh high stockings would have to be enough to keep her warm. There were blue leg guards, a ninja mask and a weird blue tunic with shoulder pads. "I suppose I'm only Frost because she was Sub-Zero's apprentice?"

"Well when life parallels art so clearly." I said, slightly muffled by my blue ninja mask. Thomas snorted from behind his own mask. I considered making him the other Sub-Zero named Noob of all things, then I would be the one bent on vengeance for his older brother, but that felt kind of lazy. Instead he was Scorpion. Michael came out of the same bedroom with a nylon shirt making his arms look mechanical.

"So why am I Jax?"

"Because I'm already Sonya." Karen said cheerfully.

"Would you have preferred Kitana?" I asked, lifting a brow.

"I could have been Stryker." He suggested. My eyes went wide, I forgot all about Stryker! "You forgot all about him, didn't you?"

"Shut up." I insisted. Justine giggled in her Sindel costume, Butters stood there in his Liu Kang costume next to a sexy female Nightwolf, and I felt like I captured the essence of our crew fairly well. Except for the uh Stryker oversight. Sarissa hugged herself leaning against the wall.

"Guess I didn't rate a costume, huh?"

"I thought of getting you one… but you're still lying to me." I said darkly, tossing her a bag. She juggled it a moment then risked a peek inside.

"Is this a sort of punishment?"

"And it'll be very fun to watch." I replied. "Mac, you wanna play dress up too?" Mac shook his head. I didn't think he would I didn't actually get him a costume. Once everyone was dressed for the party, Butters actually stayed in with the kids. The plan was simple, according to some paranetters and Jo Murphy, tons of boats were being rented with pontoons. Lara and her team were attacking one marina while Jo and his Viking SWAT team attacked another, and Thomas and his team were going to take the water while I took the island. That was the plan any way… then I realized something… I was bleeding, arguably the biggest game in Chicago, and on the Goblin King's shit list, all while the wild hunt was about to start.

The second the sun hit the horizon Thomas and I heard the horns. We were running down the pier and I stopped. "What's up?" Thomas asked me.

"Shit… the wild hunt is… is hunting _me_ tonight." I looked at him. He just gawked at me, mouth likely wide open in his scorpion costume.

"The universe is against you man. Only explanation for this crap." Thomas said. I agreed.

"Karen, I'm going to need less Sonya Blade, more Johnny Blaze." I turned to Karen and everyone got to see her curl down in pain, flesh burning and melting away her clothes while simultaneously forming tight leather pants, tall studded motorcycle boots, and a red bikini top. She got a motocross jacket instead of plate male this time, and red fingerless gloves covered her hands. Her face didn't become a skull but looked like she was wearing really good Day of the Dead makeup, and her hair flicked like flames around her head. She stuck her fingers in her mouth and whistled a strangely pitched sound and a roar echoed from the ground. An entirely demonic looking skeleton chopper clawed out of the ground, glowing red and rumbling less like an engine and more like the boogeyman.

"Holy Hell!" Michael swore.

"New bike?" I asked approvingly.

"Well after you made Morty a god, he decided to do some good… by proxy. He gave me this body and this bike so I could fight crime. Its made of the spirits of a biker gang." She explained. I started beating up air in an excited dance.

"This so makes up for running for my life. Why the change in your Blaze-itude?"

"If I look like I'm on fire I'm on fire. How you gonna touch me if I keep burning ya?" Karen mounted the bike and something deep and primal inside of me got very jealous of the biker ghosts it was comprised of. I sat on the bike and saluted my brother. Molly did the opening rip of 'bad to the bone' and Karen put one foot down as a center while she spun the bike around to leave the dock. "Whats the plan?"

"Get away from people."

"Then?" after I paused, apparently a really long time, Karen turned and eyed me. "Then?"

"I'm thinking here."

"God, I can almost hear that poor little rodent on the wheel now."

"Shut up." I said defensively. "And head south. Head for the mills." I advised her. Karen shot a Wild Hunt hound as it attacked the front tire of her demon bike, sideswiped another, and I did stuff too. Mostly swung spells around and told her where the bad guys were. They tried to funnel us into a predictable pattern, but I saw the game. We tried turning into one, but he countered well. I shot him, hitting and tearing off his smoky mask to reveal the Erlking. Hazah. Wasting no time, I shot the other rider as well. He countered. I kept getting goaded into wasting my ammo. We got to the steelworks and turned to force the hunt into a funnel, almost slamming the bullet waster into a wall. He followed, narrowly escaping it, but not escaping me, jumping on him. That seemed to surprise him a bit.

We tussled atop his steed, which resulted in falling to the ground and bouncing across iron powdered dirt- ouch- but I recovered quickly and engaged in an old fashioned brawl with the rider. Chris Kringle! I wasn't going to hit him, but I managed to bring a decrepid wall down on him. I was about to club him unconceous when the Wild hunt stopped and gathered around me. "Join Hide or Die!" I shouted into the crowd. "that's the motto of the Wild Hunt? Well now its mine! Will you join me, hide, or die?" I asked darkly. Karen pulled her demon bike to my side and looked around wide eyed and perplexed.

"Harry? Whats going on?"

"Change in leadership." I told her. The Erlking laughed and thick gray smoke enveloped us for less than a second, and when it cleared Karen and her bike were gone but I was riding on the back of a panther the size of a horse, clad in skeletal blood red, bone white and sour apple green armor. "Karen?" I asked it, glancing at the glowing green fires she had as eyes. I took the roar in response as a yes, and then tangled my hands into the reins coming from her skull helmet. Her graceful strides cut through the air like a fresh razor. In no time we arrived at the lake, but instead of slowing, halting, or even turning, the entire hunt, led by me atop my battle-cat dove off the cliff to land atop the water, continuing to rush after the forgotten island.

Time seemed to speed up around us so Kringle did the honors and slowed it back down. We went ham on some boats, also assaulting a few packs of Outsiders in two forces. After stopping all the pontoons Erlking asked to have his hunt back promising to take them after the outsiders exclusively. Hard to argue with that. I had things to do.

I fell backward in my seat as the battle-cat reared and realized I was on the demon bike again. Karen cried a near orgasmic sound of relief and triumph then began to laugh. "That was amazing!" she screamed into the night. I was then thrown forward, pressed against her back as the bike slowed significantly and I became suddenly aware, without being part of the hunt, we were just on a motorcycle in a lake. Karen thought the same thing for a moment and we began to sink, but the ghost bike concept kicked in and we stopped sinking and splashed a v of water behind us like the lake was just an inch deep puddle. She slowed down and cut the wheels so we ran nearly parallel to the shore.

"What are you doing?"

"Fig Newton's first law of apples, remember?"

Once we lost enough speed we drove ashore and got a clear view of the battle before the bike and Alejandra get-up vanished and we began to run along the beach toward the path to the tower. "Karen- look." I stopped, grabbing her arm. She was dressed as Sonya again. "I'm possibly going to die… again, and I'm not going to leave a ghost behind this time… so in case that happens-" I started to explain but Karen's lips stopped me.

I was kissing ectoplasm put together to resemble a woman and she had no temperature. It was like putting your finger in water that was the same exact temperature as the room. It was an odd sensation that almost didn't register because I was expecting her to be humanly warm on this chilly night, or inhumanly cold considering she was dead. But despite all that, her lips were heavenly soft, her arms were strong, her body was small, and curved to press against mine as I was pulled down into the kiss, and the moment just felt amazing. I tried to be respectful with my hands, and eventually decided the safest place for them was in her hair, and then reluctantly the kiss had to end. She sighed and smiled at me… then something blew up in the distance over the lake.

I tore my face from my ghost girl to look at the lake and noticed the barge hooked to a half sunken, completely charred boat was moving, then I noticed the things ramming into it to propel it forward. I conjured an orb of pure cold and tossed it into the lake. The squeak and crack of ice rubbing met my ears before a spikey ball of ice bobbed to the surface in the path of the barge. I did this again but then something hit me, knocking me to the ground. Cat Sith. Damn it I didn't have time for this. The beast must have been infected at the botanical gardens. I told him to sit in Mab's garden and he vanished, his eyes and snarling white teeth fading away last. I thought the barge was going to make it thanks to Sith's interference but the Water Beetle shimmered into visibility and rammed the barge, destroying it.

Remember those old Navy Seals commercials with the man slowly coming out of the water? That happened. A vaguely human form rose, slowly and creepily out of the water, his mouth was perfectly centered on his face and stretched from where his ear would be to where his other ear would be. He did seem to have a bridge to his nose, though his nostrils were little barely noticeable slits. When he smiled I got the impression of a shark.

"Warden."

"Ass hat." I said to break the ice.

"You have lost. You need not be destroyed today."

"Oh god, you're the other Walker. The first." I deduced from the sales pitch. Why were they so bent on collecting me? He bowed and Karen put a bullet in his brain. He survived it and flung a black cloud at Karen. After a moment of swatting the cloud she emerged just fine. He looked at her perplexed for just long enough for me to shoot his face off, only I added a magical kick. Head erupted into ichor, black cloud poured out of his twitchy body and screeched as it tore away. the other outsiders retreated as well. I checked Karen over, wondering why the mordite didn't kill her. Duh she's already dead.

"We're not out of the woods yet, come on." I led Karin up the path to find the winter and summer ladies holding silence away while they tried to overload the island. I tried to intervene but Fix stopped me. I had to pass through a magic barior and lost my clothes but I think my naked ass convinced him I was a good guy. My friends made it through by covering themselves with mud, I summoned Queen Mab to give the ladies a firm talking to, Maeve killed Lilly, Sarissa became the summer lady, Fix tore Maeve's head off- Literally, so Molly became the winter lady. Lots of people got shot, clawed, cut, etcetera but in the end we were all muddy squatting in a hovel by the fire, eating canned beans and coffee, waiting for the wards to go down at sunrise.

Chris Kringle paid me a visit. I could totally tell it was Odin. Erlking said hey, Gatekeeper said I'd have my years backpay deposited into my account, Mab told me never to question her authority in public, and be on the look out for the nemesis and that sith was healing from it as we spoke. I warned Mab if she tried to rearrange my brain furniture I would get real dumb like micromanaging dumb. After all that I sat by the fire. A helicopter made a couple passes to air lift groups of 6 off the island, eventually leaving me alone in the shack.

"So." Karen said from the window. I looked and she was resting her head on it from outside the shack, arms folded supporting her head.

"So…" I began to say something but my chest felt like an elephant was sitting on it. "We uh… we kissed. It felt nice." I opened up sheepishly.

"You had me at 'uh.'" She said, leaning off the window frame. "We were swept up in the moment is all. I mean, considering your rager the whole ride." I followed her eyes to my naked lap and covered up better.

"How could you tell?"

"I _was_ your ride remember?" she said with a raised brow.

"That thing is always doing things ill advised."

"Do dicks really have brains? The way men talk about them makes me wonder if they aren't alien parasites that occasionally control their host at inappropriate times."

"It was just exciting to ride a ghost bike. I felt like Ghost rider for a while. And a giant ghost war panther, leading an army of goblins and warriors into battle! …Being with you… I wouldn't mind more of that." I added sheepishly again.

"Well I may be solid but I'm still a ghost. I don't think I even _have_ a vagina." Karen said looking down like she was checking the fly on her pants. "Wouldn't you miss a warm body to sleep next to and junk?" she asked, poofing to a sitting position on the other side of me.

"Well sure, maybe but… I've never instantly felt so connected to a person before. Even with Susan." I trailed off, thinking of the women I loved. It was a short list: Elaine Malory, and Susan Rodriguez. I've slept with women; I would miss that part sure but meh. My brain would give it up in a heartbeat if my alien parasite wouldn't throw a fit about it.

"See?" she said, watching the thoughts play over my facial expressions.

"Just… give it some thought, don't say no yet. Who knows, maybe that part can happen too. All I really care about is this." I said, grabbing her hands, kissing her fingers. She let out a sound like a puff of air out the nose, though she didn't have to breath. After I was done with her fingers I pulled her into another kiss, but when it was done she vanished.

I had a lot of stuff to do, but the first thing I wanted was to confront Lara. I had showered and shaved, dressed up nice and went to her suite in Château Raith.

"Harry." Lara greeted me from where she petted Dorian's hair on the couch. Dory was fast asleep in a way only small children can accomplish.

"This isn't going to be like _seven dollars on the red._" I insisted to Lara. "I don't know how or why you kept her a secret from me, but I _will_ be a part of our child's life."

"How dare you compare me to _anyone_ named Sancho." She scoffed. She passed me the sleeping toddler and I saw something fragile in her eyes. "I just didn't want to lose her. I've wanted her since Thomas was born." She pushed the hair out of the child's face and I got a pang in my chest of a familiar feeling like a memory too long ago to recall. Lara pushed hair out of my face, caressing my cheek and ear on the way. "I was hoping I'd get _you_ after father killed Margaret. I waited, the only person other than Malcolm in the whole world… I waited to meet you. He couldn't have provided for you like I could and yet he refused to give you to me. I thought about steeling you for a time but father assured me my time to be a mother would come soon enough. Then Father died, and you were so fragile from your failures, after evading my advances for so long, I seized the opportunity."

"That's why I'm not your thrall or dead in the deeps right now… all you wanted all along was…"

"Dorian Genevieve Dresden." She whispered with a loving smile. "Please don't think ill of us. I will have to take measures to ensure she becomes a vampire, but she will be better than the rest of us monsters… she'll be just like her father." Lara put a hand on my arm and backed away looking at us together. I had thought she had Thomas's eyes and chin but he didn't get those from Raith he got them from Mom. As I looked at the darling little girl I saw so much of my mother in her. I held her close in a hug then gave her back.

"I get to see her whenever I want. You will not take her out of Chicago without telling me, and if you need a sitter you will ask me to watch her first." I folded my arms.

"Your terms seem fair. Shall I write up a legal agreement?"

"Do you have to in order to comply?"

"No."

"then don't waste your time and money." I said walking away. "I'll be back this weekend to meet her the right way." I let Lara know before heading to Molly's. I had a lot of work ahead of me. So this is why Cat Sith said I had so many. In a year I went from single to single father of three.


End file.
